A Hop, NO Skip and Many Mishaps to a Disney Dream

[jenseib]

It was close to 8 and I tried to wake Claire up. She was dead to the world.

I tried to entice her to get up…reminding her of the fun day we had planned, she just kept sleeping. Claire can sleep through anything in the morning. If it was a perfect world she would stay up till midnight every night and sleep till noon every day. I always say she was born in the wrong time zone. She should live in California!

I decided I wanted to run up top one more time and take some pictures while pulling into Port. Sadly I never got that “great” shot I was hoping for. The sun was so bright and the reflection off the water made it hard to get great shots, but that didn’t stop me!

Somewhere along the line I took this picture. Must’ve been on the way up, but I have no clue where? Maybe in the elevator?

And here is what I wanted to get….The Lighthouse. I wanted a fabulous picture of it…and I’m not sure I really got what I wanted. But I took about a zillion pictures trying.

And here is one of the shots I had really wanted….except I wanted the water to be blue!! Dang sun was NOT cooperating.

[jenseib]

I finally got a picture of the light house with blue water….but I also got some weird lines in it too. That darn sun!!!

[jenseib]

Hi Dude!!!

More pictures of pulling into to port.

I headed back down to the room and shot a few more from the Verandah then. Still trying for that perfect lighthouse shot……

[jenseib]

And someone must like to watch the ships come in and sunbathe at the same time! LOL

Looks like we have some early partiers!

[jenseib]

And one last picture of the lighthouse

OK! We now HAVE to get Claire moving. Claire and I had an excursion to go on. I basically had to pull her out of the bunk, but once she was up, she did get moving. She said she wasn’t hungry, but I made her eat something. When looking at pictures of food prior to cruising, she consistently said she wanted a chocolate covered donut, so I had brought one down for her. She licked the chocolate off and was done with that! LOL! She had a sausage link and maybe a bite of hash brown.

She had other things on her mind though. She was very excited about the excursion.

After we were all dressed and ready, we headed to the Buena Vista Theatre to meet. Mom had decided to go on her own that day, but she tagged along with us to the meet up and stayed with us till we left.

I forgot to mention that the night before we had tried to do the Dective agency interactive play thing onboard. It was closed at the time we went. Mom had promised Claire that they would do it on this day later on. While waiting in the theatre Claire talked about this a lot. Mom promised that they would indeed do it sometime after the excursion. Mom and I also talked of possibly checking out Atlantis when Claire and I got back as well. We decided to play it by ear.

Several Excursions met in the Theatre. The process was to grab towels, if needed, when you walk in. Again, you should walk in on deck 4, as they have nothing up on Deck 5 entrance. Then they line you up and you give them your tickets and they put a wristband on you for your excursion. We also put a sticker on our shirt so the CM’s could see which excursion we went too. I believe we got a Dalmatian sticker. And that sucker was STICKY. It came off my shirt through out the day but stuck to my arm. And it HURT to pull it off.

After we had all the right stuff, we lined up with our excursion mates and headed off the ship.

Once off the ship, we had to wait for an excursion leader to come and take us the rest of the way.

Now you are probably thinking…”OK, what excursion did they go on?” WELL……

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You will have to wait for that one!

[DisneyKidsDad]

OK...we've been waiting & waiting!! :D On with the show!!

[jenseib]

The next section is going to be scattered with pictures here and there. I left my SLR in our room. I didn’t want it going on this trip with us. I took pictures with my waterproof camera and my point and shoot on this excursion. Of course that card is the “infamous” lost card now.

So on to the excursion…what was it you ask?

It was the Dolphin Encounter at Blue Lagoon.

This was an encounter…NOT a swim. The Swim cost a lot more and I wanted to just give this a try and not break the bank.

I had debated over several excursions before booking this. We also just thought of winging it back when Skip was coming.

Claire had seen a commercial abut Dolphins and soon started asking to swim with them.

After some thought and research, I decided to book the Encounter. Blue Lagoon was rated better than Atlantis…and cheaper too. So I went with that.

Once Skip made the decision NOT to come, I asked Mom if she wanted to take his place. She said no. But she wouldn’t mind observing. I quickly tried to book her, but our time slot was booked for observers…..Though I actually saw very few observers there that day.

So…I had left off when we had gotten off the ship. We waited for a few minutes or so and then a new person came to direct us where to go. While standing there I took some pictures of the AquaDuck part that goes over the side of the ship...and some ship pictures, etc. Of course they are all gone now. …that still really irks me.

While standing there we saw that on that spot of the Aquaduck that comes over the side was a girl just sitting there. A CM crawled out to her and pushed the raft through and they crawled back in. I had heard this sometimes happen if you don’t have enough weight. No worries for us. Claire wasn’t tall enough to ride by herself and I had plenty of weight for the 2 of us! LOL!

Our guide led us to a boat to ride over to the island. It was a pretty long walk, but not much further than the walk everyone has to take to get to anything in port. I had that point and shoot in my hand and I took shot after shot after shot, just randomly aiming it. I even took a picture of a cool small boat that was docked and the guys who were working on it….Oh how I wish I could see those pictures now.

We got on the boat and Claire and I went up to the top and chose the back row seats. Soon we were on our way to Blue Lagoon. I shot lots of pictures on our way to the island….MOST on the lost card, but I did switch back and forth to the waterproof camera every so often, so I have a few to post.

[jenseib]

There she is.

[jenseib]

And then I switched cameras again for the rest of the ride over, so those pictures are lost.

It was about a 20-30 minute ride over to the island. Nothing too exciting, but there are a lot of HUGE homes and yachts along the way to look at.

I was told by several different people to bring a sweatshirt, as the ride over can be chilly. My suggestion is DON’T. Claire and I were too hot to wear them, which meant I had to stuff them in my backpack, along with 3 big towels. If you get chilly, I would just say use your towel to wrap up in. It will save on room. Of course the exception would be if it was really a cold day.

I could tell Claire was excited. She just looked around and watched the water with me on the way over, but I could tell she was thinking…..”let’s hurry up and get there!”

And soon we arrived!!!!

I took lots of pictures of the Blue Lagoon sign and the island as we pulled in, but again all lost.

When we got off the boat we were all led down the dock to a little open aired classroom where we learned a little bit about dolphins.

The classroom was packed. Claire and I just squeezed in where we could.

[jenseib]

We then were led to another area to get lockers and put our stuff away. I took this one on the way.

We put our belongings in the locker and then were directed where to go. There was a couple of spots for those doing the “swim” and a few for those doing the Encounter.

We had to climb down to a floating dock and the sit on the edge with our feet in the water. That water was COLD!!!!!!!

We then waited…..and waited….and waited a little more.

We could see these guys swimming over in another area.

And this guy swimming here and there.

Claire is still patiently waiting.

[jenseib]

We see this guy walk over by the other dolphins and talk to them.

Another dolphin comes over to say hi.

Our instructor comes over and tells us that the dolphin that is supposed to come to us is not behaving. He/she wants to play with his friend and won’t leave the other area unless they both can come. He said they don’t make the dolphins do anything they don’t want to do, so he was going to try for another one, and basically it was a waiting game.

FINALLY we had one who wanted to play with US!

I believe her name was Dot. She was pregnant…..about 7 months I believe…..and they can go up to 11 months if I remember right. I just remember it was a random time, like between 9 and 11 months or something like that.

Our instructor gave us the directions, and told us how things would be happening and then we got started.

[trvlcrzy]

Just a thought...

There's a website

 

www.ifoundyourcamera.net

 

People who find cameras and memory cards post pictures for others to identify. Maybe there's hope!

[jenseib]

Just a thought...

There's a website

 

www.ifoundyourcamera.net

 

People who find cameras and memory cards post pictures for others to identify. Maybe there's hope!

 

Thanks. I searched Orlando Florida, and found some Disney pictures...jsut not mine! LOL! But I might keep looking. I never thought of that before. Thanks so much

[GatorMomInNC]

Hi Dude!!!

More pictures of pulling into to port.

I headed back down to the room and shot a few more from the Verandah then. Still trying for that perfect lighthouse shot……

Hey that ship is named after me!!!!

[jenseib]

Hey that ship is named after me!!!!

 

How funny!

[jenseib]

Dot did a few tricks while our guy (I can’t remember his name, but he was really good and friendly) told us about her.

The photographer also told us about few options. One was a book and a CD of the pictures he took. No one wanted it. I asked about just a CD, and he didn’t know the price…which led me to believe that he didn’t take a lot of pictures unless you bought the book. I didn’t buy the book, but looking back, I wish I did.

Claire and I also wore water shoes, and they asked us to take those off.

[jenseib]

We then took turns getting into the water by families. We picked one family member to get a kiss from our Dolphin and they shot a picture of it. That water was SOOOO COLD! The adults had to crouch down into the water and WOW!...Quite the shock.

Another thing, the platform you stand on is full of algae. Really gross feeling. And slippery too.

I handed off my camera to another family to take our picture. That’s what most of us did while in the water. We just asked some another family who was not in the water to take pictures. It worked out pretty good. I know I took a ton of one family with their camera. LOL!

[jenseib]

Take note of the girl sitting on the right side in the background looking at her camera…….

After each family got a picture taken with Dot, we then got called back into the water in groups to interact with her. This is when I realized I hadn’t put sunscreen on. Luckily we didn’t get TOO burned, but we both got red. I was sitting with my back totally exposed to the sun, and I knew Claire was getting hit hard too. But the sunscreen was up in the locker, so we stuck it out.

Every so often Dot would swim away and we would have to wait for her to decide to come back. And every so often we would get some other rogue Dolphin coming in for a visit.

We were not in the first group to interact with Dot, so I just took some pictures and watched. I believe we were the 2nd group though.

[jenseib]

Here she is blowing out her blow hole.

Our turn!!! We got to run our fingers across her teeth and feel them.

Dancing with Dot! I make some of the weirdest faces!

[jenseib]

Can you tell she liked it?

[jenseib]

And this is the copied redneck version from the site.

[jenseib]

And the redneck version of Claire’s kiss.

Claire and I were done with our turn with Dot. We told her goodbye and headed back up to the dock.

Claire and I went back to the locker and got our things. We dried off and wrapped up in towels.

I got a tap on my shoulder and heard….”that certainly isn’t the camera you had last night”. It was the couple from the show who had asked me about my settings/camera. They had done a dolphin excursion as well. I laughed and told them no, that one was left back on the ship.

While we were gathering our things they played the video that was taken while we had our excursion. I asked Claire what she thought. She kind of wanted it, I wasn’t sure. I told her we would go look at our pictures first and then decided.

Of course Claire spotted the gift shop! She instantly fell in love with a pillow with a dolphin on it.

I made sure this was something she really wanted and told her it would be coming out of her spending money and she was fine with that.

I snapped a picture of Claire with the pillow

and then put that camera away and pulled out the point and shoot. So all the rest of the pictures are lost…….

I took a look at our pictures…and WOW! How can you refuse. BE AWARE!!!! If you go in thinking you won’t buy, you will be VERY tempted. Luckily I didn’t go in thinking that! LOL! They had 3 pictures displayed and I wanted them all. We found out that if you got the DVD, which was on sale, the price wasn’t too bad…Ok it was bad, but not full price bad. LOL!

I decided on the DVD and 3 picture package. It also came with some magnets and key chains with our picture on them as well.

Claire and I headed off to the bathroom while we waited for the DVD to be made. Remember that girl I had pointed out earlier, well she was in there and she was dressed…..in Disney kids club CM clothes. I asked her if she had the afternoon off and she told me that when they do good things Disney rewards them with prizes. Her prize was the dolphin encounter.

Claire and I then stopped for a drink and some ibuprofen from the little store. I think Claire might’ve gotten an ice cream bar of some sort too. We walked around a bit in the area and I took several pictures. We didn’t wander to far though, as I wanted to get my DVD as soon as it was done and be on the next boat back which was at 1PM.

About 10 till 1 the DVD was ready and we paid for our purchases and headed to the dock.

Here is what we got.

[jenseib]

This is the redneck version of the DVD. I can not find anyway to actually copy the DVD to my computer, so I recorded it with my camera off the TV and loaded it to youtube. Of course the quality is not great, but you get the idea. I am the one with the horrid laugh too!

[Host Mick]

I don't know who is enjoying it more, you or Claire.

This is a lot of fun. I feel like i'm on vacation with your family.

[Roe95695]

Your review just keeps getting better and better - thank you for all the pictures.