Saturday, March 28, 2015
Hockey Playoff Update
I'm taking a quick break from the vacation photos to let you know that Lucas's team won their 2nd playoff game 3-2 and are more than likely moving on to the semifinals. More importantly, Lucas had the best game of his young career, having a hand in all goals with a final points total of 1 goal and 2 assists. Woohoo!
Friday, March 27, 2015
March Break 2015, Day 4: St Maarten
Day 4 saw our first port of call in beautiful St. Maarten. That was our favorite stop during our last cruise so we were all looking forward to seeing it again. Previously, we stayed at a beach near the boat in Philipsburg on the Dutch side of the island. This time, we went on an excursion to a resort at Orient Beach, which is located about 20 minutes away on the French side.
Orient Beach is a Euro-style beach, which basically means it's clothing optional. However, the only bathing suits we saw out of the ordinary were a couple of near senior citizens in thongs. (Yes, one of them was a man.) Luckily for our eyes, they didn't stick around too long. Suffice to say, Lucas found it amusing.
Here are some non-geriatric in a g-string pictures from Orient Beach. (sorry, all the photos I have of them from this angle include a girl's butt over Brandon's head)
Me doing my impression of Moby Dick, the great, white whale.
As part of the excursion, we had a lunch buffet in a tent right next to the beach. You may notice I look like I ate the entire buffet myself. Oh, that reminds me, it was St Patrick's Day. We all wore green (once we were out of the water), and my t-shirt read, "Irish-ish."
On the bus ride back to the ship, I took a crapload of photos, mostly to test out the camera. I know you don't come here for the landscape photos so I'll just post a few. The first one isn't framed very well, but it was the only photo I could get of the Orient Beach area from above.
Yet another picture of Lucas and Jayden. I have a slightly better one with the flash, but of course, neither of them are looking at the camera.
I like this next one for 2 reasons: first, it's a nice view of a town and the geography in St Maarten. More importantly, when looking at this later, it occurred to me that from this distance, that could easily pass for a town in the southwestern part of the US. Well, until you got closer and saw the rundown houses and tiny streets. Then you've probably narrowed it down to L.A.
Though not everyone there was poor, as evidenced by some of the fancy-schmancy houses.
Once we got back to the boat, we dropped Lucas off at the Kids Club, and Marilu and I took a water taxi over to St Maarten for some shopping. She got some bamboo sheets that she's been wanting since our last trip, and I purchased liquor!
Unlike most cruise lines, Disney lets you bring liquor on board instead of storing it until the end of the trip. Considering the sky high prices for alcohol on board, buying your own is a no-brainer. I already had Crown Royal on my mind, and when we went into a store that a special for 2 liters of Crown Royal (plus a "free" 250 ml bottle thrown in) for $31, that was a no-brainer. For comparison purposes, I just checked the LCBO's website, and a 750 ml bottle here in Ontario would cost me $28.95. Kiss my ass, Canada!
Our shopping habits aside, here are some photos from the water taxi showing both the ships and downtown Philipsburg. As you can see below, it was a busy day on St Maarten with no less than 4 ships in port.
Here's a closer look at the prow of the Disney Fantasy. I have much better shots from our stop in Castaway Cay so consider this a preview.
I made sure to get pictures of Marilu on the water taxi with both the cruise ships and Philipsburg in the background. Much better than having to look at me.
Whoops, spoke too soon! A couple with an accent I couldn't place was nice enough to take a picture of us while on shore. (mind you, I once mistook a German accent for an English one so I may not be your go-to guy for accents)
And let's close this out with a few more "scenic" photos of the Dutch side of St Maarten.
This is a good shot of Philipsburg's downtown/boardwalk area. It also happens to show the beach we stayed on last time we were in St. Maarten. In fact, you can see the view from that beach (circa 2012) right here.
And away we go, back to the boat. We'll miss you, St Maarten!
Next up: San Juan!
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
March Break 2015, Days 2 and 3: At Sea
It turns out it took me a couple of days to get in the swing of things with the camera on this trip. For example, on Day 2, I took a grand total of 10 pictures, all from dinner. Day 3 wasn't much better so I combined both days for this post. Never fear, though, as the picture taking gets out of control on Day 4 when we arrive at St Maarten.
Some non-related vacation news before we get started: Lucas made the cut for one of the representational teams for spring/summer soccer! I'm not exactly sure what percentage of kids didn't make it, but we're proud of him nonetheless. They don't have competitive at his age, but as I understand it, representational is somewhere between competitive and recreational. The part I really like is that representational teams use on-staff coaches as opposed to volunteers. Lucas's volunteer coach last year (in a different league) didn't have the best attendance so this is a big plus. Preseason practices start this weekend so expect pictures from that over the next couple of weeks.
Back to vacation! One of the nifty things about the Disney cruise is that they do rotational dining. What this means is that over the seven nights of the cruise, you rotate between the three main dining rooms: Royal Palace, Animator's Palette, and Enchanted Garden. Your servers rotate with you so you really get to know them and vice versa. I can't speak for everyone on the cruise, but our servers were fantastic, and in my opinion, they were one of the top highlights.
I didn't take the camera with me on the first night's dinner (Royal Palace), but you'll see more of that in later blog posts. I did, however, remember to bring it for night 2, which was at the aptly named Animator's Palette. I focused on family and friends that night, but once again, you'll see more pictures of the decor in a later post. So here's the entirety of my Day 2 photos. First off, group shot of everyone! (except me)
Those big screens you see in the background are fully animated, and on our first night, the "surfer dude" turtle from Finding Nemo was onscreen, interacting with the audience. It was pretty amazing since he asked one of the kids from another table where they were from, and when they said Ontario, he incorporated that into the conversation. At first, I thought maybe there was someone behind the scenes doing the voiceover, but considering there were different conversations on other screens, it's apparent that it was just really cool voice recognition.
Lucas and Jayden show off the "hats" our servers created for them.
And finally, a group shot of the adults after we dropped the kids off at the Kids Club.
Day 3 was another day at sea, and we spent most of the day playing around on the top decks. First up, Jayden and Lucas played around in the AquaLab (actually, this was after some basketball, but I didn't get pictures of that). As you can see in the first picture, it's similar to a splash pad. As the kids soon realizes, one of the big advantages over a splash pad is that you can also use the floor as an makeshift slip and slide.
They also had to take a few more runs on the kid's water slide.
And finally, the granddaddy of all the water fun: the AquaDuck! Possibly the coolest recreational feature of the Disney Fantasy, the AquaDuck is a massive enclosed water slide that runs above the top decks. Suffice to say that this was one of the most popular activities with the lines to show for it. However, if you went at night or while the ship was at port, the wait time was much shorter. I only got to go once since my knee was messed up, but here are a few pictures of that. I went with Jayden since Lucas didn't want to go at the time (he made up for that later).
While sitting by one of the pools, we saw this guy who reminded us of my dad so Marilu snapped a quick picture. We saw him without the sunglasses and hat later and there was no resemblance, but the mustache definitely matches!
Finally, a couple of photos from inside the ship. The first one gives you an idea of just how incredibly long the ship is. We were all the way at the forward end, and a lot of the fun destinations were aft so we burnt a few calories trudging back and forth. (I just looked it up and found that the ship is 340 meters long, meaning each end to end trip was like walking over 3 football fields!)
We'll wrap it up with Lucas and Jayden posing by the elevators.
Next up: St Maarten!
Some non-related vacation news before we get started: Lucas made the cut for one of the representational teams for spring/summer soccer! I'm not exactly sure what percentage of kids didn't make it, but we're proud of him nonetheless. They don't have competitive at his age, but as I understand it, representational is somewhere between competitive and recreational. The part I really like is that representational teams use on-staff coaches as opposed to volunteers. Lucas's volunteer coach last year (in a different league) didn't have the best attendance so this is a big plus. Preseason practices start this weekend so expect pictures from that over the next couple of weeks.
Back to vacation! One of the nifty things about the Disney cruise is that they do rotational dining. What this means is that over the seven nights of the cruise, you rotate between the three main dining rooms: Royal Palace, Animator's Palette, and Enchanted Garden. Your servers rotate with you so you really get to know them and vice versa. I can't speak for everyone on the cruise, but our servers were fantastic, and in my opinion, they were one of the top highlights.
I didn't take the camera with me on the first night's dinner (Royal Palace), but you'll see more of that in later blog posts. I did, however, remember to bring it for night 2, which was at the aptly named Animator's Palette. I focused on family and friends that night, but once again, you'll see more pictures of the decor in a later post. So here's the entirety of my Day 2 photos. First off, group shot of everyone! (except me)
Those big screens you see in the background are fully animated, and on our first night, the "surfer dude" turtle from Finding Nemo was onscreen, interacting with the audience. It was pretty amazing since he asked one of the kids from another table where they were from, and when they said Ontario, he incorporated that into the conversation. At first, I thought maybe there was someone behind the scenes doing the voiceover, but considering there were different conversations on other screens, it's apparent that it was just really cool voice recognition.
Lucas and Jayden show off the "hats" our servers created for them.
And finally, a group shot of the adults after we dropped the kids off at the Kids Club.
Day 3 was another day at sea, and we spent most of the day playing around on the top decks. First up, Jayden and Lucas played around in the AquaLab (actually, this was after some basketball, but I didn't get pictures of that). As you can see in the first picture, it's similar to a splash pad. As the kids soon realizes, one of the big advantages over a splash pad is that you can also use the floor as an makeshift slip and slide.
They also had to take a few more runs on the kid's water slide.
And finally, the granddaddy of all the water fun: the AquaDuck! Possibly the coolest recreational feature of the Disney Fantasy, the AquaDuck is a massive enclosed water slide that runs above the top decks. Suffice to say that this was one of the most popular activities with the lines to show for it. However, if you went at night or while the ship was at port, the wait time was much shorter. I only got to go once since my knee was messed up, but here are a few pictures of that. I went with Jayden since Lucas didn't want to go at the time (he made up for that later).
While sitting by one of the pools, we saw this guy who reminded us of my dad so Marilu snapped a quick picture. We saw him without the sunglasses and hat later and there was no resemblance, but the mustache definitely matches!
Finally, a couple of photos from inside the ship. The first one gives you an idea of just how incredibly long the ship is. We were all the way at the forward end, and a lot of the fun destinations were aft so we burnt a few calories trudging back and forth. (I just looked it up and found that the ship is 340 meters long, meaning each end to end trip was like walking over 3 football fields!)
We'll wrap it up with Lucas and Jayden posing by the elevators.
Next up: St Maarten!
Monday, March 23, 2015
March Break 2015, Day 1: In Transit
To make things much easier on myself--and to speed up the time it takes to post--I'm organizing my photos one day at a time, starting with Day 1. That should allow me to get a new post out every day or two. I should note that due to the sheer number of photos, some of the days may be spread out over multiple posts.
Technically, our vacation started on the Friday, when we drove down to Syracuse, in anticipation of our flight the next morning. But let's face it, nothing about Syracuse screams (or even whimpers) "vacation spot," so for the purposes of the blog, Day 1 is the day we got the heck out of Syracuse.
Calling Day 1 an early day is a wee bit of an understatment. Our flight left at 5 something so we were up and getting ready at 3:30 or so. Here's the first photo from the trip, showing the whole gang at the Syracuse airport. For those of you unaware, we were traveling with our friends Chris and Nicole, their 3 kids, and Nicole's parents. A third family, Sheridan and Heidi and their 3 kids, traveled separately but were on the cruise as well.
We had one stop in Atlanta, where we spent a little over an hour. The best part of Atlanta was that we got to eat Chick-Fil-A for breakfast, one of my favorite fast food restaurants from when I lived in the South. What a great way to start the smorgasbord of food that awaited us the rest of the week.
For some reason, Lucas decided to do pushups. Or at least what he calls pushups. It usually looks like he is humping the floor.
Cute photo of Brandon, Lucas, and Jayden. Note the Chick-Fil-A boxes. Yum!
Even with the early start time, the kids had more than enough energy to keep playing in the Atlanta airport.
Once we arrived in Orlando, we hopped on Disney's bus that brought us to Cape Canaveral and the ship. Everyone poses before the ride begins.
I probably should have taken a picture of the cruise ship (the Disney Fantasy) before we got on it, but I was probably too tired, giddy, or some combination of the two, As a result, our first photos from the cruise are from our lunch on Deck 11 at the aft end of the ship. These were taken while we were still docked.
If you squint, you can see the Kennedy Space Center way off in the distance.
Best photobomb of the trip goes to Lucas.
Now to the fun stuff! Lucas started off by going down the kids' waterslide several times. What I find amusing about this photo is that he had a very distinctive bright orange shirt that you saw in the last few photos. You'd think it would help him stand out, but in this photo, he's standing next to a kid with the very same shirt.
I've included a bunch of pictures from two of his runs down the slide to show what our new Nikon camera is capable of. It has a mode that lets you take multiple pictures per second, which came in very handy to capture his expression. You may not be able to see it here, but the detail in the original hi-res photos shows individual droplets of water. Very impressive to my amateur eye.
I love how out of control he looks here.
And finally, a few shots of our cabin. We had an internal cabin, but they include a virtual porthole, which most of the time shows a picture from outside the boat so you still have a view and can tell what time of day it is. From time to time, Disney characters would float by or peer in so that was a fun feature.
You can't have a cruise without intricate towel animals. Our first one was a swan.
Getting ready for bed. Lucas had a pull out bed...
...and Marilu and I shared a queen size.
That's it for Day 1! Watch out soon for Day 2, our first full day at sea.
Technically, our vacation started on the Friday, when we drove down to Syracuse, in anticipation of our flight the next morning. But let's face it, nothing about Syracuse screams (or even whimpers) "vacation spot," so for the purposes of the blog, Day 1 is the day we got the heck out of Syracuse.
Calling Day 1 an early day is a wee bit of an understatment. Our flight left at 5 something so we were up and getting ready at 3:30 or so. Here's the first photo from the trip, showing the whole gang at the Syracuse airport. For those of you unaware, we were traveling with our friends Chris and Nicole, their 3 kids, and Nicole's parents. A third family, Sheridan and Heidi and their 3 kids, traveled separately but were on the cruise as well.
We had one stop in Atlanta, where we spent a little over an hour. The best part of Atlanta was that we got to eat Chick-Fil-A for breakfast, one of my favorite fast food restaurants from when I lived in the South. What a great way to start the smorgasbord of food that awaited us the rest of the week.
For some reason, Lucas decided to do pushups. Or at least what he calls pushups. It usually looks like he is humping the floor.
Cute photo of Brandon, Lucas, and Jayden. Note the Chick-Fil-A boxes. Yum!
Even with the early start time, the kids had more than enough energy to keep playing in the Atlanta airport.
Once we arrived in Orlando, we hopped on Disney's bus that brought us to Cape Canaveral and the ship. Everyone poses before the ride begins.
I probably should have taken a picture of the cruise ship (the Disney Fantasy) before we got on it, but I was probably too tired, giddy, or some combination of the two, As a result, our first photos from the cruise are from our lunch on Deck 11 at the aft end of the ship. These were taken while we were still docked.
If you squint, you can see the Kennedy Space Center way off in the distance.
Best photobomb of the trip goes to Lucas.
Now to the fun stuff! Lucas started off by going down the kids' waterslide several times. What I find amusing about this photo is that he had a very distinctive bright orange shirt that you saw in the last few photos. You'd think it would help him stand out, but in this photo, he's standing next to a kid with the very same shirt.
I've included a bunch of pictures from two of his runs down the slide to show what our new Nikon camera is capable of. It has a mode that lets you take multiple pictures per second, which came in very handy to capture his expression. You may not be able to see it here, but the detail in the original hi-res photos shows individual droplets of water. Very impressive to my amateur eye.
I love how out of control he looks here.
And finally, a few shots of our cabin. We had an internal cabin, but they include a virtual porthole, which most of the time shows a picture from outside the boat so you still have a view and can tell what time of day it is. From time to time, Disney characters would float by or peer in so that was a fun feature.
You can't have a cruise without intricate towel animals. Our first one was a swan.
Getting ready for bed. Lucas had a pull out bed...
...and Marilu and I shared a queen size.
That's it for Day 1! Watch out soon for Day 2, our first full day at sea.
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