Disney Cruise: Visiting The Bahamas

On the second full day of our cruise, we visited The Bahamas. We did take a look at booking some shore adventures but honestly, with four of us, we could almost take another cruise if we did no shore adventures. Also, none of them were super appealing to us. So we found free things to do online and looked forward to those things instead.

Dave tended to wake up earlier than the rest of us so he went on the top deck and captured the sunrise.

The port we stopped at was Nassau. Sam checked it out as we got ready to disembark.

 Welcome to The Bahamas!!!

I was excited to get a picture of Sam and Rachel with our actual ship.

About a fifteen minute walk from the port was The Queen's Staircase. You can read more about it here but it was basically hewn out of rock by slaves and later named in honour of Queen Victoria. It also provided some beautiful shade, a relief from the heat.

It was also a great place to take pictures :)

This is us at the base of the staircase and there was a waterfall coming down the rock face behind us.

Sam raced up the staircase and Rachel, Dave, and I took it at a more leisurely pace.

At the top of the staircase is Fort Fincastle. Since you had to pay admission to go in, we declined. We also found a lizard. Or a gekko.

Rachel loved all the pink buildings in Nassau!

We also got a family picture of us in front of our ship. Yay!

My only regret is that we didn't try to find a beach in Nassau. Unfortunately, the next day was cool and windy so we didn't swim. This would have been the perfect beach day but we were hot and tired and just wanted to get back to the ship.

We had lunch, a rest in our stateroom, and then hit the ship's pool. I loved that they had life jackets available as the water was just a little over Sam and Rachel's heads.

After the kids were done in the pool, we grabbed some pizza slices and watched a little bit of The Muppet's Treasure Island movie on the Funnelvision. This was seriously such a fun way to watch movies.

Coming up next ... PIRATES!!! Shiver me timbers and hold onto your hats!

*You can read about Day 3's very special evening here.

Photo Of The Day - February 18 - 23, 2018

I hope you are all okay with the randomness of these photo a day posts. I try and write them when I have some time so I don't have a consistent number of pictures for each post. I think this post is short and sweet :)

February 18, 2018 -- Rachel and Dave working hard on Rachel's Disney Cruise Memory Book. You can also see the chain Rachel made as a Valentine's Day decoration in the foreground.

February 19, 2018 -- Almost every weekend we make a "weekend list." It sometimes includes fun things but mostly it's a list of things to get done. This past weekend, Rachel and Sam had lists too. (And our grocery shopping/errand running lists are completely separate.) Long live the lists! Except not.

February 20, 2018 -- Right now, Tuesdays are my busiest, craziest day of the week. I work at my manager's house all day and then Rachel has dance right after school, we rush home for a quick supper, and then Sam has piano right after supper. You'd think somewhere in there, I'd find time to take a picture, but you'd be wrong :)

February 21, 2018 -- Wednesday mornings coffee-hot chocolate with real whipped cream are my favourite after my crazy Tuesdays.

February 22, 2018 -- Perk of working from home -- I can get work done and take care of my skin at the same time! And post slightly scary looking pictures like this one - HAHAHAHA!!!

February 23, 2018 -- It's the most wonderful time of the year. Also known as, Spring Training baseball games started today! WHOOOOO HOOOOO!!! Bring on all the Blue Jays baseball!!!

This Or That

I'm blatantly borrowing this blog post idea from Bekah. You all know how much I love reading these sorts of things so please let me know if you play along too!

Cake or Cookies
I'd much rather eat cookies than cake. Give me some Oreos or the chocolate chip cookies our local grocery store bakes and I'm happy.

Call or Text
Call. I'm still fairly bad at texting but use it mostly to arrange play dates with all the kids' school friends.

Coke or Pepsi
Do you even have to ask?!?!

Dogs or Cats
 Ummm... neither :) I'm really not an animal person, which is why my excitement over the animals on our safari last summer really surprised me.

Eggs or Pancakes
Again, neither. These are two quick suppers that Dave makes for himself and the kids. And I eat salad. Ha!

Facebook or Twitter
Facebook, although I have really lost my love for it lately. It just drives me a bit nuts. I'm rarely on Facebook these days which is why you should really check me out on...

Instagram or Pinterest
INSTAGRAM all the way!!! Although I really do love Pinterest for finding fun ideas for the kids' birthdays or Valentine's Day cards or fun experiments to do in the summer.

Marvel or DC
Ugh... I am so not a comic person.

Paperback or E-book
Paperbacks all the way! I don't know that I'll ever get into the e-book trend.

Give me all the physical books!

Summer or Winter
For the season, Summer. How long until I can wear shorts and t-shirts again? For the Olympics -- Winter! Whoo hoo!!! I'm a little Winter Olympics obsessed :)

Sweet or Spicy
Sweet. I cannot handle spice. Sam puts Tabasco sauce on his eggs and let's just say, he did NOT get that from me :)

Tattoos or Piercings
At one point in my life I did think about getting a tattoo. I have since changed my mind :) However, each of my ears are pierced twice, I have my nose pierced (and it felt like a really empowering thing to do), and my belly button was pierced for about a year. And now I'm done.

Tea or Coffee
Ummm... do I really have to choose?!?!?! Coffee (with hot chocolate) in the mornings, tea in the afternoons and evenings. Remember my mug cupboard?!?!

Yoga Pants or Jeans
It depends on the day. I'd say I generally prefer jeans unless I'm hanging around the house the whole day. Or if I'm really tired, but then I'd rather just keep my pjs on!

Zoo or Aquarium
Aquarium. I've never been a big zoo person and, honestly, our safari ruined zoos for me forever.

We really need to go visit the aquarium again...

I hope you enjoyed reading this and, as I said above, let me know if you decide to answer these questions.

 

Disney Cruise: Princesses Everywhere You Look

I want to devote a separate post to the scheduled princess meet and greets from our cruise. These were the only two events (Princesses and Frozen) which we had to reserve free tickets for and we had them on two different days. Again, I was so impressed with how much time each character gave to Rachel.

We only brought one princess dress for Rachel to wear but we could have probably bought another one. She loved walking down the stairs "like a princess" -- her interpretation!

At our first gathering we met four princesses. The first one was Cinderella. When Cinderella first greeted Rachel she twirled her, and since I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't ready to get a picture, so I asked if she could do it again. I'm so happy she did. Rachel was so excited to get to dance with Cinderella :)

Next up was Belle who was dressed for the ball.

I love how Rachel is telling her something and Belle is listening intently. I just loved how engaged they all were with Rachel.

We didn't know much about Princess Tiana but she became one of our favourite princesses. 

Rachel got to dance with Princess Tiana too :)

Last up was Rapunzel. Sam was along for all of this but just wanted the autographs of the princesses. He didn't want pictures taken with them. He even wore his pjs for the meeting (ha!).

The next day we had our Frozen Meet and Greet.

Again, I just loved watching the interaction between Rachel, Elsa, and Anna.

As we were leaving the Frozen Meet and Greet we randomly ran into Princess Tiana in the art gallery. Rachel was excited to show Tiana some of her favourite pictures and I was so impressed that Tiana took the time to interact with Rachel -- especially since she was probably supposed to be somewhere else.

There's a part of me that rebels at all things "princess" and we don't tend to make a big deal of them normally. But I have to say, there was a small part of me that wished I was Rachel's age and could be as unreservedly excited about meeting real princesses as Rachel was. I know that these will be unforgettable moments for Rachel.