Jan 10 - Aruba 2

Our day started with a 7am tour of Aruba. Sunny was there right on time and introduced us to Ricardo Thomas, our driver guide. Ethel, Sharon and I were in charge of the 4 little girls and 2 little boys. The other “boys” along with Mei had booked themselves a Mariokarting excursion around the island.

First up was a quick drive through the streets of Oranjestad, the capital of Aruba. This didn’t take long! We soon hit the “countryside”. Aruba was a lot drier than I expected. There were Cactus and Khwi trees everywhere. Our first stop was the natural bridge. Because we left so early, we were the first ones there! Baby Beach was next. It was a beautiful beach with turquoise waters that was calm and shallow. Although it was great for children, with 6 of them, it was extremely hard work! The sand was a royal pain in the behind! Ricardo-Thomas was fabulous with his run down on Aruba, he covered biology, history, geography, culture, politics, education and more right through our dive. We were taken around nearly the whole island. We returned to the ship via Eagle and Palm Beach where most of the big hotels were. There were four ships in port that day and I was glad that we were returning to the Disney Wonder for it was by far the most beautiful!!!

The markets outside the port in daylight and open!

Being whisked away for Mario Karting

A Mario Kart...

The Convoy

Mal and Elliot's kart

The rugged coastline of Aruba

Baby Beach

Jonah chose to smolder from afar

If you're wondering what Khwi tree is, they are the ones that are not cacti

wild goats

wild donkeys

By 1140, we were back on ship! We forgo the chance of shopping, even for diamonds. Ethel had attended the diamond shopping talk on the previous day. Aruba was meant to be the place to go! We have had enough of the kids. We posted our SOS message on our dry erase board. We attempted to go lunch but all the restaurants were still closed!!! We had to wait until 12pm for BBB to open. Luckily for us, we didn’t have to wait too long before re-enforcements came.

We bathed the children to rid them of all the mud and sand, and then attended to the highly stimulating task of doing the laundry. After a failed attempt at board games on account of Jonah, we retreated to the pool deck to join Ethel and her girls. We fed the little ones while we waited for the ship to set sail. The children really enjoyed waving to the crowds who had gathered to send the ship off. And how could anyone not be impressed by that horn!?!?!

The adults then dressed for their dinner at PALO. It was of course, another fabulous evening of fine dining with friends! Our entertainment that evening was ”Once upon a Song”, a show based upon the great Disney tunes. The musical arrangement was great with the orchestral backup recorded by the San Francisco Philharmonic recorded at Skywalker Ranch.

The ladies dressed for fine dining

We scored the private room and Cornelia again

Once upon a song

It was getting my materials ready for this post that I realised we had lost 4 days worth of photos from the cruise! It took me a while to get over this...We shall not name the culprit! But thank you to all my photographer friends who have been kindly letting me use their photos to plug my “gaps”.

Jan 9 - Aruba

Captain Henry made an announcement that was music to our ears. To make up for missing out on Castaway Cay, we were going to Aruba a day earlier. Everyone was excited about the prospect of staying overnight at Aruba. This evening, we would be able to put our feet on terra firma.

We decided to have a full table service breakfast at Triton’s. I reacquainted myself with Little Mermaid’s Morning, a very healthy meal of Belgian waffles stuffed with Dulce de leche and rolled in sugar and cinnamon. It was served with watermelon wedges so it had to be good for you.

Sharon, unfortunately, was still feeling unwell and had to go back to the room. We hung on to Sam to give her a chance to rest. I dropped Sam off at Flounder’s and he screamed. Luckily it only lasted for 10 mind and he stayed settled. No such luck with Jonah so we had to keep him with us. We tried to go to Art of entertaining, a series where guests were shown how to make dishes and taught about the details of fine dining. We were rejected as it was classified as adults only and we had Jonah with us. Drats. Eventually Flounders had enough staff and they were able to take Jonah over in to the Oceaneer's Club where he had a blast with Lara, Emma and the other children.

Malcolm and I headed for Ducky William’s presentation. He is the senior illustrator at the Walt Disney Company. He has been with Disney for over 30 years as an illustrator of books, lithographs, magazine ads and commercials. It was astounding to discover how many things were drawn by him! As he sketched away character after character, he told his tale of how his Disney career came to be. What an incredible story of dreams and persistence! It was truly inspirational. At the end of his presentation, he raffled away the 26 life drawings. I won one!!!

Don "Ducky" Williams at work

Mulan

Signed and in my hot little hands!

When Malcolm picked Jonah up for lunch, we found out that Sam had fallen asleep! Malcolm tried his luck again at chip it golf...No cigar. He missed out on winning again. He took Jonah for a nap to console himself with his second placing.

Malcolm at Chip It Golf

More characters!

Things you have to do to entertain yourself whilst your parents are busy...

I settled myself in the Buena Vista Theatre to watch the Prince of Persia. Sometime during the movie, the ship had docked (early). Unbeknownst to me, the Marr Boys got pulled out of movie right near the end while I stayed on and finished the movie. I emerged to find everybody waiting for me to go off shore. Oops...

It was exciting to finally be at our first port! Unfortunately, Sharon had to stay onboard. Although she was feeling better, she thought it best to recover properly rather than pushing her luck. It was probably a very wise move.

Boy was Aruba humid!!! We arrived just at the right time to admire the beautiful sunset! Our plan to have dinner at port was thwarted by our inability to find a restaurant that was open. So after, a short stroll, back to ship it was for dinner at Parrot Cay. I missed the Magic Show and opted for sleep as there would no sleep in tomorrow.

Aruba

Waiting for Belinda to make an appearance...

The natives have been let loose!

It seemed that we can't escape from Disney

Oranjestad

Walking along the shoreline

The Disney Wonder

Watching the sunset

No food...so back towards the ship

Minnie gave a little performance during dinner!

Panama Canal & Beyond on The Wonder

This cruise from Port Canaveral bound for Los Angeles a much anticipated cruise .

The whole tribe will be congregating at Port Canaveral on January 4. A pre-cruise bonding session to remind ourselves of why we really want to be around each other for 15 days on end has been arranged for the 5th. We are heading for the Kennedy Space Centre for the day. The bus has been booked and discount coupons acquired. We are devising a strategy for boarding the Disney Wonder on Jan 6. The same bus company from the previous day's excursion has been re-deployed for morning transfer duties. We have a target time to be at the port. We have decided to maximise the power of numbers after embarkation. We shall divide and conquer. One has been allocated the duty of acquiring PALO reservations, another has been set the task of registering the children for kids club. The rest will have to battle with the feeding the children. A rendezvous point has been set by the pool. The research to finetune our approach continues.

Shore excursions have taken up a big portion of our meeting schedule. The ports of call include Castaway Cay, Aruba, Puntarenas, Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas. We seem to be bucking the general trend by choosing to do excursions either ourselves or with our own private guide. That is, we are only doing 2 excursions with DCL. Many other cruisers who are not doing DCL run excursions appear to not be doing excursions at all and staying on the ship.

Our first stop will be at Disney's private island hideaway, Castaway Cay. I can't wait! I have heard so much it and it has all been good. Next up is Aruba in the West Indies. We have arranged our own MarioKarting adventure for the boys and the girls will be touring the island in our air-conditioned private van with our friendly private guide, Sunny. The plan is to meet up for lunch and then explore the town before heading back onto the ship.

We will then travel through the historic Panama Canal emerging at the Pacific Ocean. Malcolm and I watched a documentary about the building of the Panama Canal and have been fascinated ever since. We jumped at the chance to sail through it. I am in the process of acquiring a book about the Panama Canal. I have been told to try to be less obsessive...

Puntarenas in Costa Rica is one of the ports where we have elected to do a shore excursions with Disney, one of the reasons being is that it is one of the few ports which:
1) offer excursions suitable for all ages
2) offer excursions suitable for all ages of interest
We will be heading into the rainforest for a ride on an aerial tram.

Our first port in sunny Mexico will be Manzanillo where we have lined up another private tour, this time with Paco. For a bargain price of US$300 total, he will drive us around and be our private guide, as well as providing cold water and refreshments.

Puerto Vallarta is slated for our other Disney run excursion. We are embarking on a Tequila making journey! Still not quite sure why I am doing this as I don't drink alcohol...

Last but not least, we have Cabo San Lucas. Our plan is to DIY. We will bargain for our own boats to the famous rock formation at Land's End and then explore the town at leisure.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to and end. That, for us, will happen at Los Angeles, where 14 of us have to figure out how to spend the day and transport ourselves around before boarding a 14 hour flight at 1045pm, with 6 children and our luggage in tow. Plans at the end of the cruise still undetermined! Wish us luck.

P.S. We have been allocated stateroom 7088, the same stateroom number as on the Disney Magic back in April! How cool is that?