It has been a while since I posted last. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years are in the past and will be missed on my blog. And to all of you out there who have been on Cruises before, just let me, first timer, tell about my experience in my way. Kirstin, Jeff and boys were going on a Disney Cruise and invited Judy and me to go alone. We debated for about a week and decided to take them up on it. Thanks Kirstin and Jeff. This was an experience and not an adventure or cruise. We left a day early to allow for any delays and spent a night in Orlando. It is a good thing we did because we traveled though Atlanta and Atlanta got a half inch of ice and a lot of snow the next day (there was still snow on the ground a week later when we returned). Then off to Port Canaveral Saturday morning on the Disney Cruise Line Bus.
Lian was a trooper and helped with the luggage. He had a much lighter backpack, which he did not want to hold. He opted to pull a carry on for mom instead.
Logan wanted to wear his backpack. He appears to be laboring under the weight of it, but he is fooling us. The boys were really excited. Kellan took it in stride by riding in the stroller.
This is what we saw when we got there: The Disney Magic.
Mickey was there to greet us at the beginning of our journey.
Judy was not in the Mickey photo because she took the picture. So we posed for this shot in front of a Mickey Statue of the next Disney Cruise ship , The Disney Dream, which leaves on it's maiden voyage on Jan 26. The Dream is 40% bigger than the Magic and has over 5000 beds.
We finally got to walk on board. Excitement!!!
We immediately went to the Parrot Cay (pronounced key) Dinning room for lunch. Kellan is enjoying his one Cheerio lunch.
We are right across the bay from the Space Shuttle launch site. I have a closer shot of the building but chose this one because of the DCL bus in the foreground. There were a lot of them coming because we had about 2400 cruisers on board with 980 crew members. Every crew member that passed you anywhere on the boat always smiled and greeted you, as though you were their great friend.
This is one of the ceiling lights in the Parrot Cay dinning room.
This is the water slide in the Mickey Pool.
There was always a competition between the boys to see who got to push the buttons on the elevator. "Up or Down" was always the question.
Everywhere we went, including at our home port, was the competition. They followed us throughout the Caribbean. Here is the Carnival Dream. The boats are not side by side but this is a much bigger boat, with about 4-5 more floors. Notice the water slide on top - adults only.
And here is the Norwegian Sun.
More launch sites.
Okay. Here is the Jumbo tron above the Goofy Pool, for families, in the middle of the boat. You can sit in the pool and can watch all the Disney animations or full length movies, like Pirate of the Caribbean, all day long. Late at night they show football games for the dads.
The entire boat was "Disney" decorated. Look at the elevator floor indicator.
Mickey's logo was the most prominent decorating feature
The Mickey pool from the tenth floor. Recognize anyone?
Ahoy down there.
This is the chandelier in the main lobby of the boat.
When the Disney Magic was set to leave port, they had a cast-off party. It was like a pep rally to get the excitement levels peaked. I must say that with the loud pop music, and hollering going on, it was LOUD. I think that we wanted the bigger,quieter, boats knew that we were something to be reckoned with.
Mickey and Minne as well as several other characters were there to encourage loudness.
Everyone got a red or blue pompom to shake around and then they blasted paper streamers into the crowd. You see here that Logan and Liam had greatest fun ever and wrapped themselves in the white paper streamers that flew through the air.
Daisy came up to see what all the fun was about. We got our picture taken with here and a "new" member of the family, who just would leave. This little girl scolded Logan and Liam at one point because they were fighting. She told them, "You should not be fighting; you are brothers."
Then we had a mermaid join us.
This is our first Sunset at Port Canaveral.
This is most of the of our group. Can you guess who is missing?
This is the Animators dinning room and you can see paint brushes holding up the ceiling and art on the calls that comes alive.
When ever someone on the boat had a birthday, they were sung to and then they received a quarter piece of cake with an eatable cruise ship.
I think that every country in the world was represented by the crew. This is Dogan (pronounced Don) from Turkey. He was our main dinner server and got to know us really well, what we wanted and didn't want for dinner. I always had two big glasses of chocolate milk for dinner.
Fantasia Mickey was there and pointed at me, so I took his picture.
Like I said, everything was Disney related on the boat. This is Ketchup for dipping french fries for Logan and Liam
This is our first night on board and when we came back from dinner, this is what was waiting for us, a towel sting ray. I did learn how to make mouse and fried chicken napkins. I might share them with you sometime.
We ran into other cruise ships everywhere we went, either Carnival or Norwegian. It was comforting to know a rescuer was close by if we needed one.
The tenth deck at sunrise. Notice no one else was up.
First Sunrise at Key West.
This is the fourth pool on the boat but is was off limits to everyone but the crew. But we never saw it being used. I guess they were too busy with us to have any free time.
This is the basketball and kickball area on the top deck in the front. This is also the place where you get the most wind, thus the blast shield and net to keep the balls on the boat. Ping-Pong tables were scattered throughout the upper decks.
The adult pool . Did some laps. Well you can't call them laps as much as back and forth.
Most ships have one super loud horn. Ours had seven super loud ones that played "When You Wish Upon a Star". The first time they blew them off was when we left Port Canaveral. It was announced over the PA that in a while whey would blow them. Well is was almost immediately after that they played. We were not expecting them quite so soon and we didn't realize that we were immediately under them. THEY WERE LOUD and the boys were so startled and scared that they didn't know where to run to get out of the noise.
This is the family pool with the Jumbo-tron. It was always filled with families either swimming or watching Disney movies.
This is the kid Mickey pool, complete with water slide. This pool was well used also. More from this area later.
This is Pluto's Dog House where you could pick up Burgers, hot dogs, Chicken Nuggets and fries all day long, and the burgers were big 1/2 pounders.
We usually eat breakfast on the back deck from the Topside Buffet. See our trail?
This is one of the two duplicate controls for the boat on ether side of the bridge. The captain will use this when he backs up the boat, since it is kind of hard to use a rear view mirror.
Deck four at location F was our gathering spot in case we needed to abandon ship. We needed to pack in really tight in orderly columns for our practice drill. There was a lady beside us who was non-stop talking so we could barely hear the instructions. Then when we were dismissed, that same lady was complaining that it was so noisy that she couldn't hear what they said. I say DipStick twice over.
Here we have a statue of Mickey with the ships steering wheel because they didn't need it any more. They use joy sticks now.
Our first breakfast was back in the Parrot Cay dinner. This is where everyone that stayed long enough got treated with a napkin hat. Here is Peter Pan Liam.
Chip came to visit us and sign autograph books.
Then Mickey stopped by for a visit.
Goofy was next.
Logan is getting fixed up with his hat.
End result.
Then we saw other adults around us getting all dolled up with hats. Here is the Pharaoh and Cleopatra.
Then Green Lantern Jeff was outfitted with a tin pan hat or is it Princess Leah hair?
And Pocahontas Kirstin.
I finally got Kellan to sleep and was holding him when I was outfitted with a Pluto hat and then Pluto himself came to see the handy work.
Next was Minny Judy.
The two boys didn't keep their hats very long and they were gone when the real Minny stopped to say hi.
This guy was across the isle and and looks like he got a pirate hat complete with cup ear rings.
We were docking at Key West when I saw my next boat, a really big one. Since I don't already have one, it must be my first boat. This boat's home port was our next stop on our trip - Georgetown, Grand Cayman.
The Disney Magic from Key West. 
Sign Post.
This is the Cypress House. It is made of cypress wood which never rots and the house has never been painted. An unpainted house means that it was an unfinished house and an unfinished house was not taxed. The paint is coming off my house when it warms up.
We passed the Key Lime pie maker on our trolley tour and he threatened us with a pie.
Unemployment is so bad that even Pirates will work for food.
This is the southern most house in the United Stated.
The buoy says 90 miles to Cuba, the the southern most and closest spot to Cuba.
There are free range chickens all over town and they are protected by law and a $500 fine for hurting them.
Liam is expecting the boat to drive forward to pick him up because he is tired of walking. I can't go on. Sigh!
This will be the only time you will see Judy in a bikini.
Smile.
Liam being attacked by a hammerhead shark.
Logan saved his brother but he himself was attacked.
Two junior pirates.
Three tourists.
Now you know what they were looking at.
Our second sunset at Key West with two biplaines flying by.
Sweet Kellan just taking it all in.
This is the comedian/magician that was trying to get 1000 FaceBook friends this year. He was very entertaining. Before the show I was taking sunset pictures and he happened by and asked me if I wanted to have a picture with him. Judy took one of both of us.
Our second towel animal waiting for us in our room. 
