Disney Cruise Part 3

January 1, Wednesday

It was pretty cool to see fireworks last night! I took my time getting ready for the day. Michael, Emily, and Daniel went to Cabanas for breakfast but I have no idea when. Daniel went by himself. Michael and Emily worked out and went to eat. Jonny slept through breakfast just like I did. The only thing I was bummed about was I had wanted to try the Mickey churro waffles and Michael hesitated to tell me that they were pretty good but I didn't care because sleep was more important to me. We all went to lunch at Rapunzel's a little after 1 PM. We had a prayer and then left. We had a nice lunch. We all got the churrasco steak and I forgot to take a picture of it. The ship was rocking and it continued to rock the rest of the day and got worse. It was pretty bad at dinner. 

The kids went to deck nine to watch Zootopia. Michael and I considered hanging out in the adult area but it was way too windy. Michael wanted to watch some football and I spent some time on the balcony playing on my phone. At about 3 PM, Jonny went to check out the teen club called Vibe. He must've had fun because he was there for a while. He says he played Smash Bros with some of the other kids. Michael and I went to the adult swim area and Daniel joined us. I watched their stuff while they hung out in the pool. Emily joined them, as well. Eventually, Jonny came to where we were and said he wanted to go to the Disney Dreams show so he headed up there and got us some seats. I gave Michael and the kids their stuff and they went in the hot tub for a while and I met Jonny at the show. It was pretty hard to find him but I eventually did. It was cute. It was an hour long. The story was about a girl named Anne-Marie who was trying to find her dreams. They had musical numbers from Aladdin, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, and The Lion King. The singing was fantastic! We thought Jonny wanted to go to the Avengers trivia face off but he wanted to hang out with the people at Vibe. Daniel, Emily, and I tried to go to the 90s music trivia and we were only a few minutes late but they were already on number 14 so we only stayed for a couple minutes and then left. 

We all got ready for dinner. We had a prayer and left. The dinner was fantastic! We all got the prime rib except Emily got pasta. They had singing and dancing and Rapunzel walked around and greeted everyone. We got a picture with her and Emily and unfortunately it's a little blurry but not too bad. They had Atilla pushing a dessert cart and one of the ruffians and they entertained us for a bit. When we walked in, there was a trio of ladies singing and I laughed so hard when I figured out that they were singing Free Fallin' but in a completely different style. Eventually Flynn Rider came out and they sang "I See the Light." We saw that he was walking around greeting people after their performance and it looked like he was going to come to us eventually. Then they did another musical number and they had everybody get up and dance and walk in a line around the restaurant. 

When we got back to our seats, as I was sitting down, I saw Flynn coming past us and I stopped him. I'm so glad I did that because he wouldn't have had time to come to our table because they left shortly after that. I was so glad to get Emily an interaction with him and a couple of pictures. She really likes the "smolder" face he made in the pictures and they're really cute. 

I was so relieved we didn't have to sit next to that loud table of kids. I figured out the tips for all of our servers. I had put them in the wrong envelopes so I had to fix that but we handed them to all the people. I'm pretty annoyed that they gave us those envelopes. They already charge a premium for the cruise and charge us daily tips, so I was annoyed at the implication that we needed to tip more but I did it anyway. A lot of people cleared out of the restaurant because the rocking of the ship was so bad. 

Emily and I wanted a picture up at the front on the stage because we saw other people doing it so we had Jonny go up with us and one of the servers took our picture. I had already told Michael and Daniel they could leave and Jonny wanted to leave as well. He said he was going to hang out with some people from Vibe but I had no idea where he was and he didn't come back to the room until 11:30 PM. After we were done at Rapunzel's, Emily and I went to Shutters to make our final decisions on what digital pictures we wanted. We stopped for some photo ops with characters. 

By then, we were exhausted and it was 10:30 PM so we just went back to the room to get ready for bed. Emily and Daniel wanted to go to bed before Jonny even got there but thankfully, he arrived and everyone went to bed. I got to bed a little after 11:30 PM.

January 2, Thursday

We had a wonderful cruise! Overall, I would say it was very comparable to what we have experienced on Royal Caribbean. They do have an advantage over Royal Caribbean with their dining rooms because those are really cool and unique, but certainly not worth paying at least triple the price. The kids all agreed that Symphony of the Seas is the best ship we’ve ever been on. I asked all the kids what their favorite part was. Jonny said he liked the dinners and the free food. Daniel loved the cenote because he said it was really cool. Emily's favorite part was Tangled: The Musical. Michael and I both liked Chichen Itza the best and I also liked the dinners because that's the time when we're sitting together and talking as a family. I also liked sleeping in on Monday and Wednesday. This morning Emily and I got up at 5:30 AM. Michael got up a little after that and I had to wake the boys up at 6:15 AM. By 7:15 AM, we had a prayer and everybody but me went to breakfast because I still had quite a bit of packing to do but I finished by 7:30 AM. I finally went to breakfast but by then, everybody else was done eating so Michael waited for me and the kids went back to the room. We were able to get everything done and get the suitcases out by 8 AM. It didn't take long to get off the ship. I think it was 8:17 AM by the time we got to the Uber pick up spot. Our driver got there right at 8:30 AM and since he was driving a minivan, a Chrysler Pacifica, I was confident we could all make it in the same vehicle and we did. That was a blessing! We made it to the airport by 9:20 AM. It was too early for us to check our bags but Emily checked hers and we hung out on some chairs and waited till we could check our bags. Then we went through security and camped out at our gate for a little while. We all got some food and then Michael and the boys walked Emily to her gate while I watched our bags. The flight was good. We made it home in good time and brought everything in and Michael got all unpacked. The boys immediately went to their video games. I wasn't feeling very well but I had something to eat and did a few chores. We read the rest of the Come Follow Me lesson and had a prayer and I went to bed early. I am so grateful we were able to take this vacation together!