Nick’s First Vacation: At Sea (Part 4)
I was so happy that we had finally made it in to the character line. Since so many people were busy getting dressed for dinner the line for Chip and Dale wasn’t very long. Nick didn’t notice Chip and Dale at first, but when he did he got very excited. It was all I could do to hold him while we waited for the group in front of us to have their turn.
Finally it was time for Nick to meet his first characters. I had been both excited and worried about this moment for a long time. As a little kid I had been terrified of the characters, and I didn’t want Nick to feel that way too. I needn’t have worried though because Nick loved them. Since it still wasn’t a very long line Chip and Dale gave Nick a lot of attention (especially after their helping Cast Member told them that they were Nick’s first characters). They held out their hands for Nick to pet. They also tickled and played peek-a-boo with him. Nick had the best time, and I got an amazing picture of us with them.
Nick seemed bummed to leave Chip and Dale, but he was good about it. He even blew them a kiss as we walked away. As I put him back in his stroller I shook my head and said, “You are so not your mother!”
By the time we had finished with Chip and Dale it was just about time for pictures, so we headed back down to the lobby. Once we were all together we discussed what background we wanted for our pictures. We ended up deciding to use the main staircase. We went to get in line which luckily was very short since it was still early.
When it was our turn Jason, Nick, and I went up to take a family picture first. Nick seemed to be done with picture taking because he fussed and flailed all over. He moved around so much that he banged his head into me causing me to get a fat and bloody lip (luckily it didn’t show in the pictures). He also didn’t want to look at the camera. I kept trying to tell mom to get behind the photographer so Nick would look at her, but she didn’t do it. Turns out the photographer wouldn’t let her. Luckily we did manage to get a nice picture, although not one with Nick smiling.
Once our picture was done Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa all came over to join us for our big family picture. Nick reached for Mom as soon as she was near, so she took him. I didn’t mind if she held him for the picture, especially if it meant he’d cooperate. Plus I couldn’t handle being hit in the lip again!
When it was all done we put Nick in the stroller and started wandering around the lobby area. Our pictures hadn’t taken long, so we still had a ton of time until dinner. We were in luck though because waiters were wandering around with trays containing complimentary drinks. Strolling around with a good glass of wine was quite nice until Nick noticed it and wanted our glasses (this kid really has a thing for cups).
Since it was the Captain’s Dinner all of the high officials on the ship were in the lobby to talk to people. My grandparents started talking to one of them in particular. We wandered over to join them. It turns out that the man in charge of the hotel operations for the cruise ship had been our head server on our very first Disney cruise That was the Millennium celebration cruise almost twelve years ago. We welcomed the year 2000 in style. It was so nice to see Daniel again. Our wait stuff on that trip was probably the best one we have had on any of our cruises (they set the bar quite high). Of course they were also in charge of taking care of some very high VIP people on that trip as well, so they really were the best.
After talking to Daniel for awhile Nick started to get fussy, so we started walking around again. Needless to say wandering around wasn’t very exciting for him. Eventually it was time for dinner so we headed down to Animator’s Palate. That night was the night that we got to have our Turtle Talk with Crush show. It was cute, and crush actually talked to us specifically (yes, we do have big waves in Michigan), but I think I like the show at the parks better. Nick enjoyed seeing the different Nemo friends that showed up on the screen, but they had put his highchair so that his back was to our main screen, so he couldn’t see well, and it only held his attention so much.
When dinner was done we were kind of at a loss for what to do. We ended up going back up to the room to change (oh how my feet hurt!) and then going back downstairs to look through the stores again. When we had exhausted that entertainment we took Nick outside for another walk on the jogging track. It was quite windy still and you could see that a storm was about to blow in. Eventually we headed back to our staterooms and we all crashed early again.
Up Next: Grand Cayman
