[stardust190]

Our room was 7630 sort of between the aft and midship elevators. Since we had been at Nemo’s Reef we ended up taking the aft elevators. I can’t remember if we had to or if we were just directionally challenged on our first day (it happened to me a lot, but in general I can’t handle directions), but we walked through Cabanas to get to the elevators. The kids FROZE as they were still wet from swimming. I do not recommend going into Cabana’s in wet swimwear. They keep it quite chilly in there.

The kids of course fought over who could press the button in the elevator and learned that they needed to hit number 7 to get to our room. Of course once we got off the elevators I was turned around and had no idea which way to go. I think my son had it figured out faster than I did. Eventually we found the room and I put up our magnets so the room would be easier to find later.



The kids got a kick out of that. We took a little time exploring the room. It was small. Small enough that I wondered if we shouldn’t have gotten two with my mother along with us. As the week went on, however, it wasn’t an issue at all. We were barely ever in the room. Plus it saved us $1900 so it was all good. Yes it was tight in the room especially when the beds were set up for the night, but it was a non-issue.





Mallory liked that she could reach the sink in the bathroom.



And “her” chair:



Cameron liked that he could see other ships and the workers bringing all kinds of stuff to the ships on trucks and forklifts and who know’s what else.



Being on the first SWDAS cruise we weren’t sure what to expect, but we had a meet and greet preference form in the room that we were to fill out and bring to guest services by the next day. We decided to deal with it later. Our luggage had not yet arrived and there wasn’t much to explore in the room we quickly changed and headed to the kids club open house. On the way there Mallory bumped her head on the railings in the hallways. This was an ongoing issue the entire trip. The handrails are at the perfect height for her to hit her head. I know that they are needed especially when the ship is swaying a lot, but it was a big problem for little miss all week.

We finally made it to the kids club and it was really cute. My kids liked the idea of the computer games, however, the ones that I saw all required the kids to know how to read - at least to get the game started anyways. My kids cannot read. So I don’t think they really got much use out of any of them.



Mallory loved Tink’s area:





Still a lot of computers that she cannot operate on her own. They also enjoyed the idea of the magic play floor, but the games seemed to be geared towards an older age group and my kids really couldn’t follow what was going on.



After about a half an hour it was time to go and get ready for the sail away party. We armed ourselves with beverages, which Cameron thought was the coolest thing: “We can just get whatever we want to eat and drink whenever we want it?” Mind blown.





We danced until Cameron decided it was getting too crowded and noisy for him. So we walked over to the windows and watched as we sailed away. Then we headed back to the room to sit out on the verandah and watch the ocean go by while we all got ready for dinner in AP. The kids thought AP was neat. The food was tasty and our servers were very nice. We were all feeling a little off with the movement of the ship. Not really sick, but not 100% either. Our tablemates only stayed at dinner for about 10 minutes before they had to bail because of sea sickness. It was interesting feeling the ships movement while you were doing things like trying to eat a meal. I don’t really think the kids knew what was going on, but they were a little bit cranky and I think that was why.

After dinner we headed back to the room and found this guy waiting for us:



Mallory was THRILLED with the Sleepy Chocolate. Anytime anyone asked her how she liked the cruise she said “And they leave me Sleepy Chocolate when we go to dinner.” She STILL talks about it. Before long it was time for the nightly show so we headed down to the theater and found this guy:





Mallory had been talking about meeting him for a long time. She met him in WDW when she was 16 months old. She had seen the pictures, but she didn’t remember it. She was a happy little girl. We made it into the theater and found some decent seats for “A Fantasy Come True”. The show itself was cute, but really it was just a commercial for the cruise ship and cruise line. I was a little disappointed. At the end of the show and the cruise directors little spiel they had Magic Dave the magician come out. When I had looked at personal navigators before our cruise I really had no interest in going to a magic show. It just isn’t my thing so I kind of went into the cruise figuring we would skip the magician when that show came up and we would do something different. Well Cameron thought this guy was the funniest person he had ever seen. And I’ll admit I was entertained, but magic shows still aren’t my thing. When we left the theater and Cam declared “Mom that guy was so funny I laughed so hard I almost peed.” I knew we would be attending the Magic Dave show later in the week.

Once the show was over it was back to the room for bedtime. Cameron and I had a 5K bright and early the next morning.