The Gluttons are happy dancing, booty shaking, doing the bump, and performing mid air torso slams in excitement of seeing their stateroom.
We madly check all the amenities out, opening and shutting doors, lights off and on, doors opening and closing. We call Guest Services about a box we'd shipped ahead and they said they'd bring it right up. Sweet!
The Chief and I stood on the veranda just soaking in the view. The kids had to check the channels on the television, load their sodas in the cooler box, and stow their snacks too. A knock on the door alerted us to the arrival of our box form home.
The kids tore it open, thinking it was Christmas morning and the box was from Santa.
Um No. In the box were gift bags for our servers, characters, and stateroom host. Also bubbles for the sail away party, pirate costume goodies, snorkeling gear, over the door shoe organizer, pop up hamper, bus bar, night light/bedside alarm clock,
Disney Cruise line soaps, shampoo, and lotion off eBay,
Castaway Cay ball caps from eBay, packing tape, pens, pillow cases, and more Altoids Ginger tablets.
We found homes for it all and put the box in the closet for later use.
The phone rings and I answer it. Static. I hang up. The phone rings again. Static. I hang up. The phone rings AGAIN. I told the kids to leave it. The message button is blinking. I pick up the phone, attempt to retrieve the message. Static. Gggrrr They announce the lifeboat drill.
We grab the life vests off the top shelf of our walk in closet (all four of us can go in that closet at the same time!), put them on, help each other adjust straps, and leave. Placed here and there about the ship are life vest wearing CMs who direct you wear to go. OK they herd you like cattle, but that works. We were lead to Animator's Palette, seated across other life vest wearing trip mates, and we sat and listened to CMs make announcements.
Then, as abruptly as it started, it ended and we were ushered back upstairs to our stateroom.
Our luggage had arrived, I attempted to unpack a bit, and upstairs we went to Deck 9 for the Sail A Way Partayyy!
It was already in full swing when we arrived!
There was a HUGE crowd of people up there getting their groove on
The Chief and the kids just stood there watching the entertainment CMs working the crowds, dancing like fiends, and weren't budging. I grabbed the Princess and we danced. The Prince (I could tell) thought he was a bit too cool to dance. We broke the bubbles out and held the wands in the wind to make the bubbles.
DD and I are bubbling, singing, screaming, and dancing. DH and DS are just standing there. I'm also trying to snap pictures during all this mayhem.
party up on the Dumbotron (I need one of these for my living room)
close up of party on Dumbotron:
The crowd by the stack
The terminal through one of the glassed in barriers on Deck 9:
I grab the Chief, DS, and DD and we make our way to the bow of the ship as she begins to move. The horn blasts "When You Wish Upon a Star" and the tears start flowing. We see two, yes, just two CMs at the terminal, each with one Mickey glove on, waving to us. We keep moving toward the bow. The wind is really going. My hair is being whipped around my face, whipping into my family's faces, and even strangers. I'm trying to hold my hair out of everyone' way and politely make my way forward into the throng of people gathered at the front of the ship to see the same view.
While we did see a couple of dolphins off the bow, the sky was overcast and the wind was ferocious, so we made our way back inside and headed toward our cabin.
We met our stateroom host Ronald who asked us if someone had come fixed our phones. I had no idea what he was talking about. I told him about my troubles with the phone earlier but had no idea how he knew about the phone not working?????
Just then, a CM approached us. Picture the four Gluttons, Ronald, and the CM all in the corridor together. LOL She told us that our head dining room server had been trying to contact us. Our seating had been switched to 6pm! Yikes! It was 5:30 now!
The messenger left and a CM from ship maintenance arrived to give our stateroom new telephones. Apparently, the head server had been trying to reach us for a few hours since I left Wave Bands to tell us our rotation was been granted.
The CM swapped out the telephones in only 20 minutes and left.
We ran around, hurrying to get out of our swimsuits and into dinner clothes, and hurried out. We made it to Parrot Cay for dinner(whew)
We met our head server (Beejeh (sp?) who told us about his troubles trying to reach us by telephone all afternoon. He led us to our table and there we met our servers for the cruise Salomie from Jamaica and Tomas from the Czech Republic. Two really neat people! Salomie was the organized, efficient server, while Tomas was our comedian, magician, friendly assistant server.
Parrot Cay was very vibrant and pretty! The chandelier above us:
the carpet:
We had a table just for the four of us. When I asked why, Salomie said it was because of the food allergies, so other guests food won't trigger my food allergies. While I enjoy dining with my family, I wouldn't have minded table mates. I don't eat other people's food and the rest of my family can still eat walnuts when I'm around. A tiny bummer, but I'm flattered that they were being so considerate of me.
We ordered our drinks from Tomas (second Bahama Mama for Moi), appetizers, soups (Prince had the mango soup and I had the creamy onion Mmm). I didn't remember to take food pics until later in the meal.....sorry.
Ribs (mine!)
The Princess entrée:
The Prince's food:
and the Chief's:
Halfway through our entrées, the Chief announces that he's not feeling so good. Tomas and Salomie are greatly concerned and instruct him to load up on sugar to offset his nausea. He tries to sip a bit of Sprite and then announces that he NEEDS to get back to lay down right away.
No dessert, we rushed out of there fast. Salomie and Tomas were very sweet and attentive. The ship was rocking quite a bit and the tiny hallway to our stateroom seemed even tinier. I looked at the Chief's face while the kids were opening the stateroom door and it was
GREEN. As soon as we opened the doors, the chief hurried to the bathroom, opened the lid to the Suck O Matic and lay on the cold tile floor.
The kids were asking for the clubs. DH ill, the boat is rocking a lot, its our first night on board. What about the show? What about My plans? I dug through our toiletry kit and found the tube of Dramamine from our Hawaii trip. I brought it to DH in the bathroom.
Oops. It was empty. DH told me he took it after his seasickness episode on our Kauai catamaran adventure in September. He put the empty container back in our bag. Nice. I gave him a pack of ginger Altoids and asked him if he could make it to the show.
We staggered and swayed our way to the Walt Disney Theater (Beautiful!)
12. The Medical Center on the ship offers free seasickness medication for guests.
Up next:
Let's Get on with the showwwwwww!
we had to let them know where the ball landed 
