Cass, Rob & Kira - Christmas on the Wonder 2021 - The ups & downs of travelling during covid!

December 24th, Part 3

Not that anyone would know it because it is not listed anywhere, even in the app, tonight was the optional dress-up night. The only reason we knew it was because the characters were dressed up. Honestly, I don't even remember seeing a single person dressed up that night, at dinner or anywhere. There might have been a few here and there but this was the most casual Disney cruise I have ever taken. It worked for us because we didn't even have our fancy clothes anyway! :rolleyes:


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Speaking of which, I forgot to mention that Guest Services had called us the day before and told us that they found out that Westjet had sent our bag to Houston. Which, was good news, at least we could give Jen and Claire their Christmas presents and then we would have some space in that bag inside of the bag, for Kira's new clothes that we bought for her.

Sometime that day, however, I received an email from Westjet that said they had sent the bag from YYC to IAH but our temporary address (hotel in Webster) had expired and then ended up sending it right back to Calgary on the very next flight that evening.

:eek:

Oh. My. Dog.

Seriously?

Well, of course our hotel address expired, we were now on a ship! And I even sent them the address of the hotel we were staying at when we got off the ship, they could have delivered it there! It's like every person I spoke to or emailed didn't check our file to figure out what was going on! Well, so much for getting it to Cozumel for us, like they said they would. :rolleyes2

Anyway, it was almost time for the sun to set so we headed out to deck 4 to watch a little and then back to our cabin to get ready for dinner. Looking towards the other side of the pier...

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There is a water bottle refill station on deck 4 starboard now. :thumbsup2

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Time for dinner in Tiana's, Mardi Gras night! ⚜

We were very far away from the stage and only I really had a good view of it. Jen and Claire were behind a pole so they had to lean to see anything.

This was our first cruise without The Brace Boys. They've been on every single one of our Christmas cruises, so it was weird not seeing them. They ended their contract just after our 2019 Xmas cruise and are pursuing their music on their own now.

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Kira had stuff at the Vibe that she wanted to be a part of so she told us she would join us for Beignets.

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There's my Doberge Gateaux :lovestruc

While it was still very delicious, I enjoyed the beignets even more this time. 😋

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They had just started up their Mardi Gras march with the servers. Jen and I both were recording it, then Jen, who was facing towards the entrance of Tiana's, starting laughing and then yelled out "Go Kira! Great timing" or something like that. I didn't know what she was talking about until I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that Kira had blended in with them and was dancing her way to our table. :rotfl2:

Now that's how you make an entrance! :teeth:

I caught part of it on video, so it will be on the vacation video, when I get around to doing that. ::yes::

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This guy in black made me laugh, he was obviously busy doing some work, probably music or lights, but as he was working on his tablet, he was dancing along with them. :laughing:

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We weren't sure if people were going to be allowed to get up and join the fun, you know, with the protocols and everything, but they were and they did!

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Back to our cabin, where our traditional gift awaited us. No little santa hat this year, just a red ribbon.

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On our way to the pool, we just had to stop and get a photo of Rob, you know, doing his job. ;)

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Hello, beautiful!

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There I am, once again, in my happy place. :woohoo:

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Rob decided to sit in the comfy chairs near the bar as it was very bright there, easier for him to read. I asked him to sneak into the Café to see if they still had my caramel tarts out but they told him that they take them out around 5:30pm and replace all the sweets with this stuff.

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He took a photo of the tree inside.

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While he was gone, I spoke to a CM (not Mark, we didn't see him that night) who mentioned something about midnight mass being shown on the Funnel Vision TV. I mentioned that it was in the app that it was only showing the next morning at 7am. He went and double checked and sure enough, they were showing it around 8:30 pm. Rob stayed with me until then and then headed over there to watch.

I stayed until exactly 10pm and then went over to find him, and then I headed back to the room to get out of my wet swimsuit.

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Kira told me later that she was hanging out with her new friend J.J. and as they were passing this area up on deck 10, she noticed the screen and said to J.J., "I bet my dad is down there watching" and they went in search of him. Rob gave Kira a big hug, wished her a Merry Christmas, chatted a bit and then off they went again. I didn't see Rob or Kira until after midnight.

I was too busy enjoying this lovely moon from our verandah. 😍

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We had some interesting moon views this cruise. ::yes::

And with that, Christmas was now upon us. :santa:
 
December 25th, Part 1

Merry Christmas! 🎅 🎄🎁

After watching the morning show on the TV, Rob, Jen, Claire and I headed to Triton's for breakfast.

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While we were eating, we had some visitors, waving to us. :p


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Same stuff, we're so predictable. ::yes::

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After breakfast, we checked out the Atrium, the shops and peeked in a few places I hadn't been on this trip so far.

Very quiet atrium compared to previous Christmas mornings.

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This was the only time I was in the Crown & Fin

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Santa Goofy was all alone when I headed back to the atrium so he posed and danced for me. :goofy:

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Rob and I headed to the shops to purchase a suitcase. We didn't have the room for Kira's clothes that we had bought in Webster and the few souvenirs we had purchased to fly home and be under 50 pounds, now that we knew we weren't getting our two bags back.

This aft elevator was weird, if you pushed a button on the left, it wouldn't show up on the right. :scratchin

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I did take a pic of this after all...much better than -30C at home. :goodvibes

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Rob enjoyed some more reading time on the verandah.

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I went up on deck 9 to check things out...first time I saw a line for the pool.

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Took a pic of the snacks from Cove Café

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I met up with Jen at the shops so I could buy them something as I felt bad for not having a present for them. Then I followed her to the smoking area, hadn't been there in forever, forgot what it even looked like. :rotfl:

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Back to the room then Jen and Claire came over and we opened gifts. 🎁

They totally spoiled us! Good thing we have that new suitcase now :rotfl2:

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We headed up to Cabanas for lunch with Jen and Claire. I think Kira headed to Vibe to get the schedule for the day and then she took a shower.

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I went to Pete's and grabbed another burger. :earboy2:

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Everyone was a little underwhelmed with the selections at Cabanas that day. They had some weird stuff and no peas for Rob. 😟

My burger was good though. 🤤

Back to the room, where we gave Kira her Christmas gift, tickets to see Imagine Dragons in April. Kira and I love ID, so I could not wait to tell her about it. 🥰 She was stoked!!

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What a beautiful day! I think Kira and I watched a movie together in the room while Rob enjoyed more verandah time.

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It was finally warm enough for him to wear just a t-shirt! :lmao:

Poor Rob is always cold so it has to be 25C or above for him to do that.

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Such awesome pics Cass!

Glad Rob liked his IceCream shirt. When Chuck wore his, he got so many comments and compliments. Did Rob too?
Were you and Jen linked before the cruise or did you link once on the ship to get a table together? Inquiring minds want to know.
 
December 25th, Part 2

We headed down to deck 4 to watch the sunset.

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Oops, just noticed that Rob has his eyes closed in this one. He does that a lot. 😌

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It was already way too hot for me, I had to run back inside for the A/C. :scared:

Rob and Kira sat out for awhile, Rob was taking a time-lapse and Kira was enjoying the warm weather.

I took this photo just after going inside, I love it! 🧡



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I was just going to walk down to Triton's and wait for them there but as I walked down the hall, I spotted the sun peek out from the clouds so I popped back out real quick for a photo..

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And then I looked back at Rob and Kira and saw Moana hanging out. Rob was still doing the time lapse and Kira didn't even see me, they don't even know I took this pic. :rotfl2:

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I peeked into D Lounge, where we spent many hours playing trivia. :goodvibes

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And then I spotted Mickey and the other mouse, all alone, so I went to say Merry Christmas. :rolleyes1

Look how spiffy he looks! :groom:



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Then it was time for dinner!

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Our servers were in very good spirits tonight. :p

Jen had ordered some non-alcoholic cider for us tonight to celebrate Christmas together.

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It had the weirdest, coolest blue, sparkly texture to it.

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It was too sweet for Rob and I but Kira loved it. :laughing:


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This is usually my favourite menu and I typically order three main dishes but I was pretty good this trip and never overate. I didn't want anything to get in the way of my glorious pool time. :rolleyes:

Rob's soup...

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Me entrée, with a side of ham...

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I think we all ordered the same entrée and we didn't eat dessert that night, so that's all of the food pics for this evening.

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You know where I went...

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After some hot tub time, I noticed that they changed the colours inside, they rotate and one of the rotations were to green/red lights. Nice little touch, Disney! pixiedust:

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The water was so still that night. Usually it sloshes around a bit, which I absolutely love by the way, but this evening, it barely moved! The temperature was perfect too! It's funny, every single night, the temperature was a little different.

After swim and reading time was up, we went back to the room so I could change and then we met up with Jen & Claire to play Pixar trivia in the French Quarter Lounge. We even ordered some beignets while we played.

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This was the worst trivia the entire cruise. This lounge is not the best place to play trivia at night because half the people in the lounge were there to drink, eat beignets and chat with each other. It was so loud, we could barely hear the trivia host. It also didn't help that she had a very thick accent. We also had just enough time to play the game before fireworks started and had to speed our way through the whole thing. It was the oddest round of trivia we've ever had. :rotfl2:

Oh and it wasn't Pixar trivia, it was more like a general knowledge Disney trivia. Which we won. :p

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We didn't even have time to give away our medals, we had to book it to deck 4, our preferred viewing area and we made it just in time. It was Christmas-themed, with Santa making announcements about how he was almost here.

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It was very pretty, especially the ones that went right down near the water.

Kira was busy having fun at Vibe from just after dinner to 1am. She even did Karaoke with J.J., which I got to see later as one of their other friends recorded it. 😯 :love:

So she went from not wanting to go to Vibe to doing Karaoke, on a stage, in front of everyone, in a matter of 3 days. Life is awesome. :cool1:
 
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What a lovely, chill Christmas Day onboard! I know from your past trip reports they've had a little buffet on Christmas day (maybe in the atrium??) with coffee and pastries. Obvs they can't do that with Covid protocols but I was hoping they might do that for you in Cabanas. I guess not. Didn't realize they did fireworks ON Christmas Day, that's a nice way to wrap up the day!
 
The "other" mouse! Whahahahahaha!!! Poor Minnie :love:

That pic you took inside of the DCL swoosh in the window is save worthy for a profile pic somewhere Can I steal it please? :flower3:
 
So nice to see Jen and Claire. I remember reading may of Jens reports. Hopefully she will be writing again soon. Please tell her we .iss her reports also!

I miss her reports too! :(

Loving your report!!!

Why, thank you! :hug:

Such awesome pics Cass!

Glad Rob liked his IceCream shirt. When Chuck wore his, he got so many comments and compliments. Did Rob too?
Were you and Jen linked before the cruise or did you link once on the ship to get a table together? Inquiring minds want to know.

When he wasn't wearing a hoodie over it, yes, he got a few compliments :rotfl2:

We linked before getting on the ship. Currently, they don't seat you with other parties unless you're linked. ;)

Great update! I LOVE that you have created a new Christmas tradition for your family. 😍

Thanks, it's my favourite tradition. :love:

What a lovely, chill Christmas Day onboard! I know from your past trip reports they've had a little buffet on Christmas day (maybe in the atrium??) with coffee and pastries. Obvs they can't do that with Covid protocols but I was hoping they might do that for you in Cabanas. I guess not. Didn't realize they did fireworks ON Christmas Day, that's a nice way to wrap up the day!

Yes, you are correct about that! I went in search of that but I didn't see anything. They did give us each a little bag of cookies on the way out of the dining room that night, which I totally forgot to mention but I do have a photo that I will post ;) I don't take notes, only photos to remind me of everything, and because I only took a photo of them the next day, I didn't mention it in the previous report because there was no photo to remind me. :rolleyes1:lmao:

The "other" mouse! Whahahahahaha!!! Poor Minnie :love:

That pic you took inside of the DCL swoosh in the window is save worthy for a profile pic somewhere Can I steal it please? :flower3:

Hahaha, I knew you'd like that. :earboy2:

Yeah, I loved it too! Steal away. :goodvibes
 
Omg just love this TR
as always Cass you have a way of writing we celle we are there with you
can’t wait for the rest
 
December 26th, Part 1

Another breakfast at Triton's this morning on our last full day on the ship.

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Back to Galveston soon. :sad::sad::sad:

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Claire and Jen won another trivia and came to show off all of their winnings for this cruise. :rotfl2:A few of those were our medals that we never got the chance to give away to another family and Claire was sweet and gave me her journal. :hug: I wish they offered different prizes. Nothing crazy but a DCL calendar (which they used to give away on Christmas day after seeing Santa) or a key chain would be nice. :rolleyes:

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One last Cabanas lunch together...

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I went to grab some shawarma and some caramel tarts from Cove Café, to share. The tart was delicious, definitely should have done this more than once! :rolleyes2

The inside of the shawarma was delicious but the pita was old and crumbled instantly, which made it very hard to eat.

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Everyone else was happy with the selection from the buffet today, except for Jen's chicken strips, which were seriously disgusting. 🤢

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Rob's desserts...

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Back to the room where we did some laundry, packed up most of our stuff and then just chilled for a bit. I forgot to mention that as we were coming out of dinner last night, these were passed out to everyone. They normally have a huge spread in the atrium on Christmas morning but with covid, obviously, that was not happening.

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I had sent Rob to guest services to see if he could get some DCL tags, while I packed up. My friend Nancy's grand-daughter was collecting these and she was missing some. They were able to give him all but one, they had run out of the last one we needed but he did eventually track it down, so now her collection is complete. :goodvibes They did stamp the back of these so that you could not use them for your luggage. We are never in a hurry to get off the ship so we don't care what character we have but yeah, I hadn't thought of the fact that they wouldn't give them out freely.

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One last verandah reading time for Rob.

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Then we headed to deck 4 for a bit. Here's Rob time-lapsing again...

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You can definitely tell we're getting closer to Galveston. At one point, you could see about 15 oil rigs, mostly empty ones.

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While Rob was grabbing our laundry out of the dryer, he spotted some hazmat suit guys. This means a covid case onboard. We had heard of a few other instances like this during our cruise. They all involved kids sadly. Our sailing required kids 12 and up to be vaccinated, so there were several cases involving younger kids testing positive and then other kids who were in their group at the kids clubs were required to isolate, along with their families, in their cabins until getting tested. Sad but necessary during these times.

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Jen and Claire were busy with another activity so Rob and I headed down to Disney Cruise Line trivia just the two of us. Once again, we had Max as our host and he won again. :p

Max wanted to know how I knew so much, I told him my brain is jammed full of useless Disney trivia and not much else. :rotfl2:

Just as Max was getting our medals, a rogue family member from the team in front of us jokingly sat down with us, as if she was part of our family. When Max returned with just two medals, he said "Oh, I'm sorry, are there three in your party?". I told him that she was just trying to get a medal and I happily handed both of ours right to her. She was thrilled and said her grandson was going to be so happy! I don't need the medallions, I just like to play and challenge myself.

While we were chatting with another family, Max had gone back to the stage to grab the other two medallions. They always have only 4 medallions to win, so if your party is bigger than that, you only get the 4 of them. So there were two more sitting there and he brought them over and said "Here, these are yours, you deserve them!" :rotfl:

Dang, Max! Stop being so nice, I was trying to give them away! :lmao:

By then, no one was around to give them to so Rob grabbed them. We eventually gave them to Jen to bring home to her granddaughters.

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Time for our last sunset at sea.

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Then our last dinner...

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This was the show night but it was done at the very end of dinner, we were on our way out actually when Robert, our head server, told us the show was about to start.

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We sat and watched, said our good-byes and then I headed back to the room real quick to change into shorts while Rob and Kira went to grab us a seat in Azure for Lion King trivia, which just happens to be one of my favourite Disney movies. :woohoo:

Stay tuned for the next chapter to find out what happens during our last trivia at sea. popcorn::
 
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Oh my god small world after all Cass
Max is on one of our fb Disney page / group
such a nice young man right ?
and good on so many level dancing ..shows …this was his first contract with dcl
omg with all those good pictures now for sure I am craving the food the entertainment and my favorite place in the world 🚢
 
Oh, I hate last night photos :( I mean, I love your photos but, you know what I mean :rotfl2:

Dang that's a lot of medals!!! lol

Ohhhhh popcorn emoji for the last trivia.....this will be good haha
 
You are clearly the Queen of Disney trivia!!!! :worship::worship:

How can you be on your last full day already??!!! I hope you have another cruise booked SOON??
 
December 26th, Part 2

When I got to our stateroom after dinner, I found our last towel animal and the survey.

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Heading to meet up with the rest of the gang in Azure, I finally took a photo of my favourite Christmas tree.

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This gorgeous little tree has been in this very same spot during all five of our Christmas cruises and it's always my favourite. Last year, for whatever reason, it was never lit up, so I am so glad to see the beautiful lights back on this year. :lovestruc

Spotted some more characters on my way...

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I've never seen so many characters! And they were often all alone, entertaining themselves. You can't hug them or get autographs but I secretly love this change. ::yes::

Found everyone all settled in for Lion King trivia.

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It was surprisingly easy actually. I mean, if you've seen Lion King a few times and you've got a decent memory, it was easy! I have a lot of LK trivia packed away in this tiny brain and I didn't even have to access the hard stuff. :rotfl2:

We got them all right, except one....and so did someone else! :simba:

It was a tie!! :smooth:

Time for a tie-breaker question. 🤓

We had been in this same position a few days ago, where I botched the answer and we lost to the other team. I obviously forgot to tell you about this as I have no photos LOL! I was nervous, as we eagerly awaited the tie-breaker question. I thought for sure I had this in the bag! I know way more trivia about LK than I did Aladdin, so I was pretty confident. :rolleyes:


Then he gives us the tie-breaker question.

:tiptoe:

"How long, in minutes, is the original Lion King animated movie?"

:oops:

Dude!! Seriously? :laughing:

We debated a few minutes, we knew Disney animated movies tend to be just a little over an hour, so we chose a number and hoped for the best. :rolleyes1


As soon as it was done, I ran out of the there as fast as I could! I still needed to change into my swimsuit and we were now officially cutting into my pool time and as this was my last night, I was determined to soak up every last second! ::yes::

Rob took a photo of Jen & Claire with their final winnings of this cruise.

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Just as I was heading out of the room, Rob and Kira got there. Kira had made friends with a girl earlier today and they had clicked really well. So well that they still text and FT each other most days. They were planning to go to the pool together tonight so she changed into her swimsuit and met up with her friend.

I told Rob that I would meet him down at the adult pool. As I was walking towards the elevator, I realized I hadn't gotten any evening pics from deck 10, so I went up there and took some photos.

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As I was taking my last shot, I saw Rob heading towards the pool, looking for me. :p

I yelled down to him...

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He took his spot near the bar and I headed for my swim. :love:

Not long after, I spotted Jen, taking some photos and then she joined Rob for a bit. I think they were both filling out the survey.

Jen said that she was going to get some beignets and asked Rob if he wanted some. Well, of course he wanted some, this is Rob we're talking about. :rotfl2:

While she was gone, I asked Rob to head over to the family pool to grab a photo of Kira and her new bestie. He took a few nice, close-up ones, which I won't post but here's one from afar of them enjoying the hot tub.

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On the way back, Rob took a photo of the Quiet Cove area, by then Jen had returned with beignets and Claire.

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10pm came way too fast, so I sadly said good-bye to my pool and headed back to our room.

I put the disembarkation video on in the background, packed up our final bag and put it outside the door.

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We had kept the new suitcase that we bought to put our toiletries and clothes we would need for the next few days in. It was a tad smaller than our other suitcases and not a big deal to just carry off with us the next morning.

Kira had changed out of her swimsuit and into jammies and headed back out for the final farewell and other activities at Vibe. I gave her until 1am to hang with her friends but she was tired and was back at the room by 12:30am. I didn't realize she was in her jammy pants until she came back. :rotfl: She said that other teens were wearing them and she was right. I saw so many kids and teens wearing pyjamas this entire cruise. And not even Christmas jammies either :lmao:

Time for bed for all of us. The last night of any Disney cruise just plain sucks. :sad1::sad1::sad1:

We have a few more days in Texas after the cruise, so stay tuned for that. :goodvibes

Sadly, I have to take a little hiatus, as I'm heading out of town tomorrow morning. I did my best to get through most of this report before I left, so hopefully you've enjoyed the cruise portion of this trippie. 8-)

In a couple of weeks, I will be back to tell you all about the Haunted Grand Galvez, a Historical Ghost Tour and some very boring time in Humble, Texas. :rolleyes:

See you in two weeks! :wave2:
 
Thanks for motoring through the cruise portion of your report! Loved all the chapters. Looks like you had a fabulous time! Looking forward to hearing more about the rest of your adventure!
 
Another wonderful cruise comes to a close. Can't wait for the epilogue, have a great time away!
 
Omg just love this TR
as always Cass you have a way of writing we celle we are there with you
can’t wait for the rest

Awww, thanks! :hug:

Oh my god small world after all Cass
Max is on one of our fb Disney page / group
such a nice young man right ?
and good on so many level dancing ..shows …this was his first contract with dcl
omg with all those good pictures now for sure I am craving the food the entertainment and my favorite place in the world 🚢

Yes, he was also there when we were welcomed onboard and he was dancing and singing :thumbsup2 Very talented! His mum posted on the FB page too after I posted a pic of him and us. :lovestruc

Oh, I hate last night photos :( I mean, I love your photos but, you know what I mean :rotfl2:

Dang that's a lot of medals!!! lol

Ohhhhh popcorn emoji for the last trivia.....this will be good haha

Oh, I know, right???!!! :sad:

I think with the smaller capacity, the odds were better for us to win. :rotfl:


You are clearly the Queen of Disney trivia!!!! :worship::worship:

How can you be on your last full day already??!!! I hope you have another cruise booked SOON??

Less people=less competition :lmao:

I know, right? This just flew right by! 6 nights is not enough! :worried:

No sadly, no cruise booked. We were going to try for the Magic for my 50th in March but that's probably not going to happen. :sad:

Thanks for motoring through the cruise portion of your report! Loved all the chapters. Looks like you had a fabulous time! Looking forward to hearing more about the rest of your adventure!

Thanks for sticking in there! :hug:

Another wonderful cruise comes to a close. Can't wait for the epilogue, have a great time away!

Thanks! Looking forward to some solo time. :goodvibes
 
Loved following along with your report. Glad Kira enjoyed the Vibe and made lots of friends. My kids still keep in touch with friends from Vibe. Pool time looked fabulous. We’ve never done trivia but it’s definitely on the list now.
 

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