Cass, Rob & Kira - Christmas on the Wonder, The Sequel ~ 2017

Okay, now onto our first morning of the cruise and our first at sea day. I don't take as many photos on sea days so I might not remember some stuff or more than likely, I will remember it but it will be in the wrong order. Ugh, sea days, right? :rolleyes1 :love:
I do this every time! I'll be talking about something completely out of order because I don't take as many pictures.

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Aw these are so cute. I love penguins.

That looks like the perfect place to read, really cozy and comfortable. I always bring a book to read and never end up having time to.

Very nice family photo.
 
What a wonderful first full day. Seeing your pictures is just making me so antsy to get on a ship! I wish my husband was one who liked to travel!!! LOL
 
Day 4, Part 2

We were escorted to table 39 where I was thrilled to find that this baby will be sitting in a corner :cool1::rotfl2:

Here is my view looking left, into the restaurant...

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Here is the view looking straight on with my awesome family...

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And me in my happy corner :hyper:

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And here is my crabby buddy watching over me...

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Love love love this restaurant and really loved this table :cloud9:

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I also happen to love this menu! :love:

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A lot of love going on tonight :laughing:

I don't like to make any special requests on the first night, I know it's a tough night for the servers but as we arrived early and none of the other tables had arrived yet, I did ask for my usual glass of ice. I'm an ice girl and I find the ice that comes in the drinks tends to melt quickly so I prefer to have plenty on hand.

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Kira, of course, went with her usual, which they made for her on request as it's only on the first night's menu for us.

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Rob started with these...

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While I enjoyed my leek & potato soup.

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Rob's entree...

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And I had this beauty, which, as per usual, is my favourite meal of the whole cruise...

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But I always request a side of the Dauphinoise potatoes because they are my fave! And lucky me, Joel brought me two of them :worship:

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So darn delicious!!!

After Kira finished her salad, she left to get changed for the pool. For the very first time, we allowed her to go to the pool on her own. Normally she would have to wait for us but she is a good swimmer and at this time of the night, there is practically no one in the pool and the lifeguards watch them like hawks :magnify:


The worried momma in me requested that she not go under water until I got there though. :rolleyes: :laughing:


This really worked out for us! She doesn't like to linger at dinner and we don't like to listen to her complain about being stuck there against her will :rotfl2:

Also, we finally got to enjoy some time alone :love:

She would grab an ice cream on deck 9 for her dessert and we would enjoy a nice quiet dessert in the dining room. Perfect!

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Rob's...

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Joel poured the crème anglaise over the soufflé for Rob. You can see Juan in the background too!

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And mine...

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Back to the room where we found my favourite towel animal EVAH!!!!


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I had a good, long chuckle over this one :worship: :lmao:

I changed into my swimsuit and met Kira at the pool. Rob needed some time to brush his teeth and put his braces back in so he met us later and took some pics.

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Rob found a seat behind the hot tubs where there was more light and he read his book while Kira and I enjoyed some swim time together while watching a movie. That night it was Bedtime Stories, which I don't care for so I actually spent more time at the adult pool and hot tub.

I love the adult pool and hot tubs on the classic ships! So much better than the newer ships! I hope Disney does a better job with the next three ships when it comes to pools :cool:

Kira was happy to have a hot tub at her pool since there is no longer one on the Fantasy.

Once we had our fill of the pools, we headed back to the room. I asked Rob to go in Quiet Cove Cafe and grab a photo of the snacks offered there since I wasn't dressed for it.

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He said the CM mentioned that they offered the same stuff every night. I only wish they still had the self-serve option instead of having to wait for them to do it for you. I understand the cleanliness issue of it but the one time I was in there, on embarkation day, I waited about 10 minutes for someone to grab me 3 desserts.

As we passed by Pete's, which was only open for about 10 more minutes, I saw the special today was spicy crispy chicken sandwich. Normally I can't handle spicy, I am a big wimp when it comes to spices but the one I had on the Fantasy was barely spicy and so perfect, I decided to try this one.

Umm, yeah, this was weird. First off, it was WAY too spicy for me and it wasn't one big chicken patty, it was like 2 chicken nuggets :confused3

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I took one bite and downed an entire water bottle, it was too spicy for this chicken girl :scared:

Kira said she was hungry by the time we got back to the room so I just decided to order room service again.

It was about 35 minutes tonight but it was delicious and it hit the spot!

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We snacked while watching a movie and I perused the Navigator for the next day.:cloud9:

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Day 5 Part 1

We slept in a little today, guess it wasn't enough for Kira :laughing:

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We watched as the pilot boat dropped off it's captain.

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Our arrival into Key West was 11am so we have a little bit of time still.

I just want to mention this now before I forget and also because I hadn't noticed it in the bathroom until this day, we had a Sharps container in our room. I'm not sure if that's the case for every room but I know I used to have to request this for clients so it was interesting, to me at least :rolleyes:

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Before Breakfast, we had one stop, Kira's first meet & greet with Stitch :stitch:

Rob and Kira headed down early while I was getting ready but I joined them soon.

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This is where we met up with that family we saw at the Waffle House :earboy2:

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Stitch noticed her shirt, which had little Stitchs embroidered in the top part.

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The WH family was kind enough to lend Kira a sharpie so that she can get Stitch to sign the back of her phone case.

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We popped out on deck 4 to see that we were at the dock and slowly making our way closer.

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We ran up to Cabanas to eat some breakfast.

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On the way back to our room, Kira found another little gift in our FE :rolleyes1

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We slathered ourselves in sun block, grabbed our passports and wallets and then headed down to deck 1.

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We were meeting up with some friends from California who were vacationing in the Keys.

The plan was for them to pick us up, drive us around to check out some Key West scenery and then have some lunch together.

We met them at the end of Duval St. I hadn't seen them in so long so it was nice to see them again and catch up.

We drove around and saw some less touristy areas :p

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As well as some beautiful places too. I just love trees, I can't help but take pics of them! Some girls love flowers, meh, I'm a tree girl :love:

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We were all curious about the shape of Key West and how it fared during the hurricane. We didn't see too much damage, mostly some battered trees and a lot of debris from the trees that people had piled up near their garbages that hadn't been picked up yet.

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We drove by the Southernmost Point Buoy where we found the typical long line to take a pic. At least they were smart and they lined up in the shade unlike last year:rolleyes1



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We parked and headed to our friend's favourite place to eat, Blue Heaven.



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This was definitely a unique place, very Key West-y and I loved it! Kira loved it even more because they had chickens and cats and lizards everywhere and you could bring your dog so we saw a few of those too.

We put our names in for a table and then sat in the bar area with some drinks.

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Like I said, very unique :goodvibes

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We chatted for about 30 minutes before our table was ready. We didn't realize they were only serving their brunch menu. We weren't really super hungry anyway because we had just eaten a few hours ago.

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Kira just ordered some bacon, which was weird because she doesn't even really eat bacon. I think she was a little shy and nervous and didn't really know what to order. She didn't want pancakes since she had just eaten them not too long ago plus she was sitting across from me and couldn't tell me what she was thinking :rotfl2:

The only thing that appealed to me was the Rooster Special but since I was lacking in the ham department on this cruise, I asked if they could substitute the bacon/sausage for ham and they did :cool1:

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I gotta say, I wasn't even that hungry but this was so darn delicious, I ate every single morsel! :love:

Rob had some pancakes...

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And then the table (minus me & Kira) split a piece of Key Lime Pie, which our friends absolutely love and get every single time. They also get the banana bread here too, they grabbed a full loaf from the store to take back to their place.

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After Brunch, we headed back to the downtown area. Found a spot to park ($25 :eek:) and then walked down to the pier. Our friends had wanted to check out the Mel Fisher Maritime museum, since they were really into that stuff. They bought Kira a special coin, it was recovered from a shipwreck, which is pretty neat and made her happy :goodvibes

They had some beautiful stuff in that store, expensive but beautiful.

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It was time to head back onto the ship now. We took turns taking pics of each other and then said our good-byes.

We had a wonderful time with them and I hope to see them again soon. It took Kira a bit to come out of her shell but she did finally and just loved their two young adult girls, she said they were super nice and sweet! They also bonded over their love of dogs, so that helped too :rotfl:

Nice windy-blown hair, n'est-ce-pas? :rotfl2:


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I have to say, the temperature that day was just perfect! While I did have to stay in the shade as much as possible (as per usual) I was never hot. There was hardly any humidity and the temp was about 75F I think. This was amazing since the last two times we were in Key West, I almost died from the heat :rotfl:


I have to end here because of photo limits. :(
 


Day 5 Part 2

Back on to the ship where we grabbed some ice cream and then headed back to our room. I think this was my first and last ice cream, it's delicious but so rich and sweet.


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I went to grab a water from the fridge and noticed that everything was warm! Our fridge wasn't working :sad2:

Rob called Guest Services and not too much later, they sent up two guys to take our fridge. Yup, they just took it away. While we were at dinner, they had replaced it and put our drinks back in, which was nice. :thumbsup2

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It was now time for sail away! One of my favourite things to do on a cruise is to head to deck 4 at all aboard time, watch the latecomers run onto the ship and then sail away from the port. It still amazes me that there's always a few groups of people who board either last-minute or who are late! :earseek:

This time there was a couple that was about 10 minutes late, they were lucky the captain waited for them! :rolleyes:


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Kira had gone somewhere on her own but 10 minutes later was texting me asking me where I was. She found me :P



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We watched as the crowds gathered at Mallory Square for the daily sunset celebration.

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And then sailed away from beautiful Key West. It's definitely one of my favourite ports that I have ever stopped at on a ship.

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We hopped over to the other side to watch the sun set over the beautiful ocean.


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Yup, took a few pics :rolleyes1

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Just before we started pushing away from the dock, this guy had started running around deck 4, we noticed him only because he was going the wrong way. Signs point you in the right direction but he chose to go the opposite way from everyone else. He was very loud each time he passed us and then eventually he stopped going around and just started running in the spot next to us. Then he started doing all these exercises like jumping jacks, and some other weird...things. Normally I would be like whatever but this guy was SUPER loud, grunting and breathing deeply. Eventually we just had to laugh at it because it was oddly hilarious!

We didn't say anything to Kira but eventually she just said "Seriously, dude?" and we all just laughed together. :rotfl2:

Here he is in the background pedaling his bike :lmao:

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If only there was a place on the ship to go exercise :scratchin

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We lingered until the pilot boat captain left the ship...


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Such a beautiful end to a wonderful day! :cloud9:


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That towel animal is AWESOME!!! Super cool.....I see you have Six Appeal!!! Did you go watch them again?
 
Great day in Key West. I haven't been in about 15 years...I would love to go back again.

Fun to be able to hang with your friends!

That sunset was gorgeous!

Too funny about the exercise guy. I'm with Kira and would say something too. LOL.
 


How wonderful that you were able to meet up with some friends and tour around Key West as a group! My god that pie looks amazing! :worship:

Gorgeous sunset pics :love::flower1:
 
Day 5 Part 3

It was now time for dinner at Animator's Palate.

They led us to our table, #39. Remember during the safety drill when I exclaimed that our table would be the perfect table for me? Well, it was!! We actually sat at that table! Weird and totally awesome!! :rotfl2: :cool1:

With our server, Joel at the table of awesomeness!

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Love these menus!


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Ooooh, I know him! :hyper: :laughing:

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The purseittes were the best ones I have ever tasted!

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Kira's usual...


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Animator's is the best place for soups! Yum!


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And Kira got the corn dog too because, well...corn dog! :lovestruc


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My entree...

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Rob's...
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And I got a baked potato because I don't like the wasabi potatoes. :scared:

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After her dinner, Kira left to change into her swimsuit and head to the pool while we enjoyed our quiet dessert time :teeth:

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Story time with Mrs. Clause.

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This is my favourite tree, the same one that we got our family pics in front of, which was on deck 5 so we passed by it all the time. I think I took a pic every time I passed it :lmao:


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When we got back to the room, we found these goodies!


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I got changed, Rob grabbed his book and we did exactly what we did the night before :cloud9:

Notice the wonderful lack of crowds in the pool :worship:

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After a couple hours of pool time, Kira got showered and dressed in her Christmas dress. This was the best time for us to see Santa. His meet times for tomorrow (xmas day) did not work out with our plans.

Kira quickly put herself on the Nice list. HAHAHA, not sure about that one :scratchin :rotfl2:


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Carolers before Santa.
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I don't know why he wasn't sitting? :confused3

Here's ours...


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And the professional one. :rolleyes2

Notice the red eyes? :sad2:
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At my favourite tree...again LOL!

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And then Midnight Mass in the Walt Disney Theatre.

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A pic of a few of the treats available most nights at Crown & Fin.

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Back to our room to enjoy our lights :love:

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And a movie and room service, of course :p


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All while I perused the Navigator for tomorrow's activities.

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Better get some sleep, Santa is coming tonight! :santa:
 
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I was in Key West in October a week or so after they reopened to ships. There was a lot of tree limbs/foliage piled up but it looks a lot better in your pics. The Southern Most Point monument was still being repainted when I was there since the hurricane scrubbed all the paint off. I fell in love with Key West! I really need to go back to just enjoy it. I passed that restaurant and now I wished I had stopped!

That exercise guy...SMH!

Love Kira's dress. The "professional" photos are scary! Animator's Palatte has the best menu! Love the pursettes and the soups!

Jill in CO
 
Day 6 Part 1

Merry Christmas morning! :santa:

We woke up just as we were pulling into Castaway Cay. We didn't really have a choice since the thrusters are very loud when you are this far aft :p

Ran out to the verandah to see this sight..

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Tired but happy!

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We noticed that Santa had made a stop to our room sometime during the night...

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We kind of sped through gift opening...

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She got quite a nice haul from Santa this year! :rolleyes1

She told me when we got home from this trip "Santa really knows me well! He gets me everything that I love!"

Indeed doll, Santa knows you best ;) ::yes::

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We got dressed so we could grab a quick bite to eat.

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We looked out and saw all of the officers waiting to greet guests going ashore. Most were celebrating Christmas now though. There were some Christmas festivities going on somewhere (Promenade Lounge?) but we didn't have time to enjoy them.

I gotta say, I really didn't like having Christmas on our Castaway Cay day. I know it sounds pretty awesome but logistically, it was anything but! We arrived kind of late for breakfast, compared to other days, hoping that we would avoid the crowds only to find the busiest day, by far! Last year was so much more relaxed with it being an at sea day.


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Back to the room to slather on the sunblock. The temperature was absolutely perfect today!

This was my 10th visit to Castaway Cay and by far, the best weather I have ever had! It wasn't too hot, wasn't really humid. It was cloudy for most of the day, which really helps and it had drizzled on and off for part of the day.

Perfect!! :cloud9:


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Kira was giving me major attitude about stuff that morning and we ended up having a bit of a tif. Because of that, I was a little Grumpy :worried:

I gave them some space while I just took some photos.

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We camped out at the very end of the first beach under that gorgeous palm tree next to Rob.

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Not a bad view huh?


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Kira and Rob went for a little swim while I watched from the shade.

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Then she got out and played in the sand for a bit.

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Then they headed for Pelican Plunge. It was a little cold for Rob :laughing:

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There they are, about to race each other.

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That didn't turn out so well because Kira got a little stuck on the slide and had to scoot her little bum to get down the slide :lmao:




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I suggested that they go again since the line was pretty short but Kira wasn't interested. They went back to our spot to swim a little more while I snapped some more photos.

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I watched them swim for a bit, took some more pics and then headed back to my spot under my palm :love:


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Christmas on Castaway Cay sounds amazing even if you didn't find it as amazing. :) Glad the weather was perfect!

That Santa Claus really knows everything, doesn't he? ;)

Jill in CO
 
Christmas day on CC sounds pretty perfect to me, but I could see how it would feel rushed to do other activities as well. Still...not a bad way to spend Christmas :santa:

(which of course reminds me I still need to catch up on Alaska and write about Disneyland at Christmas!:rolleyes1)
 
Blue Heaven is my favorite place in Key West for Key Lime Pie!!!
We have been there a few times and have never had real food, next time for sure, it all looks so good!
Our grandkids had a blast playing ping pong with a few other kids. I could sit out in their backyard for hours, especially on a cool Florida day!
 
We spent New Years Day on Castaway Cay. Was hard to get up in the morning after the NYE parties, so I can understand your comments about not as nice as a day at sea. Best thing was we got to see the Dream and Magic sail by.
 
Day 6 Part 2

Kira was all done by now. She didn't want to swim anymore, she didn't want to visit Scuttle's Cove or do anything else but shop and go and enjoy the empty ship. Sounds like a plan to me! :goodvibes

We cleaned off as much sand as possible and went in search of some pineapple ice cream first though.

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Last Christmas, Kira and I had spotted pineapple ice cream at Cookies BBQ but Rob wasn't with us so he missed out on it. He loves pineapple, I mean LOOOOOVES it so he was bummed when he found out that he missed it. I had read recent reports from the Wonder that they sometimes change out flavours so we were hopeful that he would find it somewhere on this cruise.

No pineapple but that didn't stop Kira :rotfl:

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A quick photo op!

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We did some shopping but didn't find a thing! I think this was the first time we didn't buy something on Castaway Cay! :eek:

Took the tram back...

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And then another photo op to prove that I was actually on the island. :rotfl2:

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Kira is pointing to our room here...

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One last pic before getting back onto the ship...

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We hit up Cabanas for lunch before it closed so that Rob could enjoy his variety.

It was nice not to have mobs of people in there for a change!

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The view from Cabanas outdoor deck...

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And my happy hubby!

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I kept him company for a bit and then went in search of my kid. She was grabbing an ice cream, yup, another one! :laughing:

I found her sitting by the pool watching the movie. She had changed into a dry swimsuit, why? I have no idea? Maybe she had sand in some crevices :p

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Look at that empty pool! And empty hot tubs too!

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I sat with her for a bit and then two little boys come running up, both with ice creams, walking/running along the pool edge. The lifeguard comes over to me and says "Sorry, but your kids can't eat next to the pool"

Ummm, not my kids! My kid knows better :rotfl2:

We looked around and not a soul in sight! These were very small kids, like maybe 3 and 5 so we were looking around for awhile and saw nobody! :eek:

While she finished up her ice cream, I took a few pics of Daisy's now that there were no crowds.

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And the drink station...

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At least one (sometimes others too) station was out of order the entire week. Same with the ones in Cabanas, they only had one running at each area. Made for chaos at the open one.

Actually this pic is from Cabanas, I have one of the regular deck 9 drink station but probably later on.

Then I went to go see how Kira was and saw this!

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Pineapple AND Coconut!! Rob was going to be in ice cream Heaven! :hyper:

I went back to tell him!

Look at the joy on his face :love::cloud9:

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At this point Kira was now in the pool and some other kids had joined her.

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Rob stayed with her for a bit.

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I grabbed me some lunch and ate it in the room in the A/C :cloud9:


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We all showered and dressed in fresh clothes and went to see the matinee of Frozen. Apart from the Welcome Aboard show, this was the only show we saw. We had just seen them all a year ago so we preferred to spend our evenings at the pool but this one was just too good to miss! Plus it helped that there was an afternoon showing :rolleyes:

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You can't take pics throughout the show but I always snap a quick one during the big finale.

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So good! :worship:
 
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