Disney Cruise Day 4 - Day Nassau Bahamas and Pirate night

Let the adventure REALLY begin - day 1 OFF the ship!  First this crazy windy photo of my crew.  They are so happy with their independence on the ship.  They hardly check into the kids club and spend MOST of their time doing laps with the mini put course.  The always available drinks are a HUGE win with these boys!

We are OFF the ship in Nassau Bahamas!  Adventure today is ATLANTIS.  Upon arriving a cute little van picks us up and navigates a few streets to this crazy mecca that folks can spend an entire week at WITHOUT being on a cruise ship.  The water park is on our list for these thrill seekers.  I mean, Oma Sue and Goomba will be first time line

Maddie helped us score a home base set of chairs.  Goomba snagged a stack of towels and the boys scouted out where to be first in line.

I didn't bring my phone so these photos are stock photos, but great for memory jogging.  Some favorites

Racing at the Challenger we all opted OUT of the leap of faith,  combination of LONG line and not real desire.  Oddly enough racing each other is more up our speed.

This is the base of the Abyss.  Honestly its covered so we had NO IDEA how scary it was.  Drew, Nick Shane, Riley, Jason, Chris and I rocked it.

Loved the paired up tube options.

Lazy river had a cool current vibe!

We had certificates for lunch which made it fun to explore.  I am glad we crossed over to the beach.  The waves were HUGE and while we couldn't have spent and entire day there - we were starting to worry for our kids safety based on their enjoyment of the waves and magnitude of the current.

I forget how much WALKING is involved at a water park.  We were exhausted when it was over but managed to snap a pretty cool family shot.  Back side - 

Front side

Little excursion through local vendors where my kiddos selected some cool word carved animals as souvenirs.  Boys - if you are reading this when you are 20 and up, do you still have your dog, dolphin and hammer head shark?

Time to dress up for PIRATE NIGHT!  This is the ONE character we opted to get close to.  Nick spotted him and the line was manageable so here we are!

Very festive and fun night.  One of those were you realize it is fun to get dressed up in something different.  So here is our piratey crew.

Jackson was all about the face art!  Love a good mu-stash!

Nice face cutie!

Adorable pirates!

Even cuter with a parrot on her shoulder!

Argh - eat that turkey leg Matey!

Nice use of the Ski Sundown shirt!

Look at the cool anniversary surprise these 2 came back to!  They really enjoyed their cabin 'away from it all' yet very centrally located.  Loved the simple little things the crew did to make them feel special.

These guys too - slightly more appropriate towel animal.

Pirate party on the deck - with dancing and fireworks!  Don't check the time because its WAY too late.  But it was fun to keep the party going!

Getting the dancers going here.  Or at least trying!

https://youtu.be/JCsSirtX3Z0

Disney Cruise adventure Day 3 - Boarding the ship!

 Monday morning we woke up, prepped our bags and found the best viewing place for a legit rocket launch.  Best viewing spot - Oma Sue and Goomba's Balcony!  Check out the vide and see if you can hear the roar of the boosters!

https://youtu.be/zWqHHOya4zE

Time to take the shuttle TO the ship.  Little bit of orchestration and no fan, but we are on and headed to RELAXATION and FUN FUN FUN!  The bus drive had some great humor too.  Always appreciated.

Love how Disney is so darn organized.  These guys boarded first (we had a nick passport snafu - so we were a little late but made it no real problem)  Love these happy smiles!

Toasting INSIDE Oma Sue and Goomba's cabin!  Time to get those bathing suits on

The deck is open, time to pop those beers and enjoy the water slide - known as the Aqua Duck - That is Jason and Jackson on the slide - Great capture Stosh!

I remember Moana being the first movie we saw on the main deck!

Our rooms were connecting which we love!  The balcony part makes me nervous, but it seemed to work out o.k.  See Uncle Jay chatting with us form his balcony?

Dinner on the first night - finding our table and meeting our servers.  The food was AMAZING and we loved the portions.  Made it possible to sample and try so many different things.

https://youtu.be/M2sJOD6ZYTA

The kids were great eaters and while there were delicious desserts the Mickey bar was STILL the favorite!

Love this capture of the room - It was fun how at night, one bed came down from the ceiling, one from the wall and another from a sofa to a bed!  Genius!

Kiddos took turns rotating the different locations.

Disney Cruise Adventure Day 2 - Cape Canaveral

Sunday is the day of science at Cape Canaveral - a full day tour WITH an Astronaut!  

Not Shane, but close.  WE all wore little head sets to allow the leader to walk us through the different areas, shuttles and rockets.  Very thorough tour!

Hard to capture the shear SIZE of these boosters - Literally and engineering marvel.

Here is our astronaut - space suit and all - Bill McArthur.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._McArthur#cite_note-4

Autographed family photo!  Fun fact - as we were shaking his hand, Bill Says to Nick - "Nice Shirt, Go Army" to which Chris asked if he attended West Point (which they hadn't addressed yet) and than Chris REMEMBERS having dinner with him (back in the 90s) when Bill was visiting West Point and Chris was a cadet at the time.  What an amazing small world occurrence!

The 2 famous West Point Grads

(yes, I tried rotating this photo - yes, I was unsuccessful) 

Lots of touring lead to some space exploration by the kiddos and some much needed slide time - 

Our tour took us out to rocket assembly and launch area - again the shear size of the facility is a challenge to truly capture.  But we managed to capture these 2 again!

Here we all are on this perfectly breezy day

A specially M113 on display - versatile little tanks that Chris used to use as well.

What else would you do on an open field?

Delicious lunch all together apart from the America burger and fries.  The kids got to sit around a conference desk in swivel chairs.

Now its jungle gym time!

Artistic photos?

Running through the water feature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULq10yDUYww&feature=youtu.be

A 3 D moving to wrap it up

How about some parking lot fun with the gadget guy.  Look whats in the background!  The party bus!

Here is where we split for a bit.  as SHEAR coincidence would have it, we have 3 other DEAR families in the vicinity.  

Amy and Rick are out visit Elise who lives in Orlando

Chelcy and Deakon are rocking the 100% Disney park tour

Liz has a hockey tournament in Tampa that finished early on Sunday giving them free time to link up.  She patiently waited our departure from cape Canaveral but hitting Universal for a bit - 

We drove the Party Bus (just the Leadbetters) to Disney springs.  That was the place to meet the Carsons that didn't involve too many other logistics.  (expect 100 other logistics, text messages, etc..)

We parked and started operation link up.

A few store visitations - 

Clearly this shoe is photo worthy.

We ran into Amy, Rick and Elise first and hunted down a restaurant that would take - 15 - yup, 15 on a Sunday.  Our planning rocks.  We found a great sandwich shop, and when I say great, I mean they had food and a perfect room by the front window for this crew.  It was just what we needed.  We settled in the catch up - Liz, Seb and his hockey buddy Owen rolled up.  The Carsons rolled in after a fun packed day at the park.  It was a flurry of catching up and a bit of a whirlwind for all - We are thankful for every bit of effort ALL of these families put into getting there.

Squeezing every ounce of time together - Love this family!  Now go rock the park - I mean, go to bed!