Alright, enough procrastinating! In case anybody is still reading
rotfl
Here's my
Castaway Cay and Disembarkation report!
My alarm goes off at 7 AM the morning after a long long wedding day! After scrubbing my wedding makeup off my face before bed, I was not entirely ready to put on a new face so early! But, if I was offered photos on Castaway Cay, I was going to take it- dark under-eye circles or not! I'm no cosmetologist (especially not special-event worthy!) and I'd slept on my hair half up... I was NOT going to bother my poor sick hair stylist, so I just stole my cousin's curling iron in attempt to resuscitate my hair! I figured that I'd just curl it and brush it out for some beachy waves! Unfortunately, with as much hairspray that was holding the top of my hairdo in, I couldn't do much else without risking the whole thing falling apart! My poor MOH got up with only a few hours of sleep to corset me back into my gown, and we headed out!
We met the photographers in the atrium a little TOO early- they hadn't even let anybody off the ship yet! So, with the morning light pouring in through the port holes, we took a few photos in the deck 3 hallway between Royal Palace and Animator's Palate. Afterwards we got off the ship, and it was a lot of "Just hold hands and walk, and we'll take photos." It was a bit difficult, since I'd ditched the crinoline skirt AND I was wearing flip flops instead of 4" heels! Juggling Michael's hand, my bouquet, and holding up my skirts was quite difficult!! We took some photos by the ship on the gangway, then headed along the practically empty beach stopping to take photos along the way. (Honestly, a couple of my favorite CC photos were the ones taken by a complete stranger and e-mailed to us!) Let me tell you- trying to take photos with 2 people in full wedding attire on a hammock was NO easy task! We walked along the family beach and wound up at the CC wedding spot. I was under the impression that there was a CC wedding that morning, but nothing was set up... So we took a few photos there since it has a wonderful view of the ship in the background! We stopped at the Heads Up bar area for some photos, and by that point the sun was getting HOT and without sunglasses I couldn't even keep my eyes open for photos! We were SO tired and SO hot and you could completely see the difference between awake and excited from our wedding photos and exhausted and fatigued on our CC photos! By that point, we all just wanted to get back on the ship! We headed back and ran into a few family members along the way and took a few more photos on the way back in.
Once aboard around Michael and I changed (what a relief!) and headed up for some Cabanas, but breakfast had already been cleaned up, so we had to go to Flo's for some grub. Even though we'd been HOT HOT HOT on the island, we headed into the hot tub for quite a while in attempt to soothe our aches and pains... PLUS the pool water was WAY too cold! This was our ONE opportunity to go ride the Aquaduck, and we were both way too pooped to even bother! After our hot tub time, we headed back to our stateroom and slept for about 2-3 hours!!! At that point Cabanas was done serving lunch (Wah! No more shirmp for me!) so we got off the ship to walk around CC for a short time. We walked down to the Heads Up bar again and ran into my new Brother-in-Law and we got a couple drinks and enjoyed a beautiful view and a chance to hang out with some family! We could tell they were closing everything on CC around 5:00, so i stopped at the gift shop and snagged a few items before boarding the ship again! We headed back to the room and got ready for the evening and packed up all of our stuff into the many many suitcases we'd acquired! We had those set outside our door as we left for the show. We brought out chocolate covered strawberries to our friends in the Walt Disney Theater for the dinner show since we weren't going to have a chance to eat them (I feel like we were eating the entire trip!) and we finally got to see one of the shows!
Michael ducked out of the show early so we could have our guest book signed by Captain Henry who was signing things in one of the gift shops. After that I headed to the gift shops to buy a few things- some crystal
DCL flip flops, some picture frames, etc. Then we headed over to shutters to redeem our free 8x10 photo! Well... we didn't have a lot of photos taken by DCL photography, so we wound up with two smaller photos instead. The problem with shutters was that we spent a HUGE amount of time trying to find the photos with Tinkerbell- Me, Michael, and our flower girls, all in our wedding-day attire! So we went to their book, and they only had the photos of the FG's and Tink. We took one of their photos as a reference image to try to find our picture with Tink (it was LITERALLY the next couple photos, and the last photos taken that night!) and they told us to come back in the morning after they'd searched. Unfortunately, they never found those photos! Very frustrating!
We spent what seemed like at ETERNITY at Shutters. It was seriously a MAD HOUSE!!! I don't know how DCL brides who have DCL photography taken have to decide on their WEDDING PHOTOS that night! I would be so stressed out! I've had a CD with 1065 photos on it and I still can't decide what photos I want for my wedding album!!! After shutters, it was time for dinner. We headed into Animator's Palate and our entire wedding party was near each other that night!!! ... Except for our head table (10-top) which was hidden by a wall with the big "fish tank" screen. Oh well. The dinner was good, not as good as Palo, and not as good as Royal Palace! But I just adore their black truffle dumplings! Plus, their mashed potatoes (wasabi potatos and sour cream potatoes) were amazing! Our friends had an additional side of each and we kept stealing bites! This dinner was the one where we passed the guest book around- We'd completely forgotten about it because it was hidden in the pocket of a bag that one of my friends had in their room after delivering our guest bags! I was wearing my pretty one-shouldered dress with my fabulous silver pumps... and I only had ONE photo taken of me that day!!! Yeesh! I loved that dress WAY more than the one that I wore on my legal ceremony day!
After dinner, we invited a couple friends over to help us drink our Fairytale Cuvee! As I said, I was being fed WAY more than usual and I was not in the mood to drink a bottle of champagne, so we shared it since we couldn't take it off of the ship with us! We were bad and popped the cork off of the end of the our verandah on the back of the ship! ("And that's how we met the neighbors") We put on Men in Black 3 from their on-demand TV (I seriously wish I had that at home!!!) and after my friends left, we went to bed too. Even though we didn't DO much on that day, we were still both drained from the whole stressful week and 27 months of planning! (Yikes, I could've popped out 3 kids in the entire span of our LONG engagement!)
I loved the location of our room- it was so quiet and there was almost no foot traffic past our room, plus the views off the back of the verandah off the very back of the ship was great!!! I would totally always book aft... if... There wasn't so much noise and vibration from the thrusters while docking! I didn't notice it at Nassau or Castway Cay, but it woke me up from a dead sleep at 5 AM when docking in Port Canaveral. It was like an earthquake! There was no hope in falling back asleep, so I put one one of the comfy "VIP" robes (NOT complimentary- I asked!) and headed to our balcony to watch the guys hook the ship's lines up to the shore. I sat down on my lounge chair (our room had 2 lounge chairs and 2 deck chairs!) and turned on my cell phone to see a gazillion likes and comments and other notifications on facebook! (Ah, facebook... what a digital drug you are!!) I showered and finished packing up the room, and we left for the last breakfast! It's always so sad leaving the ship! Even moreso when your family is leaving and you don't know when you'll see them again! the 3 night cruise was too short to spend a lot of time with everybody! I pretty much just stopped by for quick quips every night at dinner and at our wedding, otherwise we were SO busy the entire time! a 4 or 5 night cruise might have been nicer- with the wedding still at the beginning so you can be relaxed after! Anyways... We passed around the guest book again at breakfast and hugged everybody goodbye and got in the HUGE line to leave the ship. Once we got into the customs building we got one of the Port guys to help us with our luggage! There was NO way we could handle all of that luggage ourselves! He took us straight to our car, and we were on our way home!
Unfortunately, the story doesn't end here! Michael's sister had arranged to have a "family reunion" picnic since she and her family didn't attend the cruise, then his mom arranged to have a family dinner afterwards! Yikes! So the entire time we're driving back, we have all different parts of his family calling us trying to figure things out and attempting to assemble! I'd rented us a pavilion at Mickey's Retreat, a little park (seriously, NOTHING special) that is available for Cast Members to use. Since I was the cast member, I had to be there FIRST before others could join... Now, everyone was getting grumpy because some people had driven and some people had taken our bus from Port Canaveral. We had to drop our luggage off at home, then drive to All Star just to find that nobody there was ready to go! Since I had NO CAR (Stupid Car Accident!!!!) I couldn't just drive over there to let his mom into the park, so I had to wait, not so patiently, for somebody with a car to get their act together to get us over there! I stole Michael's brother, his girlfriend, and his nephew, and we headed in. Then we waited for everyone else! Geeze, this took forever to get everyone there! Then we were all hungry and nobody (ie, the people who didn't attend the cruise!!!) had gone to the store to pick up BBQ supplies, so once Michael got there, he had to immediately leave with a couple more people to go buy lunch supplies. Hot Dogs, Chips, Soda, etc. Meanwhile, I just followed the kids around- I've married into 9 nieces and nephews! I've fallen in love with my flower girls, and they've accepted me as their auntie! yay!
There was a pool, there was a playground, and the kids just wanted to stick their hands in a dirty stream to pick up frogs and tadpoles and to chase lizards around! It's funny how simple kids can be! I think we were all a little happier once we got some grub in us! It was nice to be able to just hang out (although we were both still a bit zombified), especially since his family lives in Idaho and other far away lands! That night, we assembled at a TGIFridays and had dinner there. Then over the next several days, I had Michael drop me off at the parks so I could use my maingate admittance passes for the family, and I spent all of my time with the flower girls and family! As soon as all of the family left the parks, I had to return to work, which was really difficult with a frazzled/fried post-wedding brain! I still don't feel completely recovered and back to "Normal" and it's been months! At least by now I've finally unpacked all of our wedding things, though most of it went into a spare closet because I don't know what to do with it!!
Ah, there you have it! The finale to my wedding Trip Report at long last! It's not nearly as exciting as the wedding post, I know! I think that's one of the reasons it took me so long to write it! Also, perhaps, deep down I thought that once I posted the last post about my wedding cruise then it'd finally be over! Having a PJ and TR was a lot of fun having new friends follow along with me! I appreciate everyone who has been there supporting me along the wild ride that is wedding planning! I'm sure I'll drop by on occasion to post soap pictures! Also, if you are interested in having wedding favor soaps made, please please visit my etsy page! I'd be happy to help and I've had a great time making them for Ginger and Judy! Pass the word to anyone that may be interested!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/JBImaginarium