Family Vacation Day 10

When we woke up on Monday morning we sat the kids down for "a family meeting".  The kids knew that I had only booked the hotel we were staying at until that morning, but they thought we would be staying in another hotel Along the coast for the rest of the week.
I very seriously said to the kids "After doing some on-line research last night, it looks like all the hotels we can afford are already booked. There are some hotels available, but they are way out of our budget." (The kids looked so sad at this point.)
"The good news is, we won't be needing a Hotel because WE'RE GOING ON A DISNEY CRUISE TODAY !!!"
The trio just sat there...stunned with their mouths gaping open. It took them several several seconds to register what I'd said. Then, slowly smiles spread across their faces and they started saying things like "really?" And "Seriously?" And finally, "WE'RE GOING ON A DISNEY CRUISE!!!"

I gave them their special luggage tags to prove that we weren't joking, and we were all so excited. We finished packing and tidied up our hotel room then drove north to Port Canaveral.

When we pulled up to the port, there was only one ship parked there. The Disney Dream!
It was beautiful and HUGE! We could hardly believe that we would be boarding it. Even I, myself who had been scrimping and saving all year for this moment, had  a hard time believing it was finally happening!
Check in and boarding went a lot smoother than I thought it would. As we boarded the Dream they announced our family's name followed by a round of applause from the cast members lined up to greet us in the atrium. The sight was breathtaking! We went straight down to the enchanted garden restaurant where we were served a delicious and very fancy lunch.
After lunch we went up to the top decks where the girls and I took a turn on the Water slide and Adam and Caleb did a little exploring.  Once Our room was available, we got settled in and then went back up to the top deck for the "Sailing away party". As we left the port, we saw a sea turtle swimming along beside the ship and marveled at the beauty of the ocean!
After some more exploring, we had dinner in the Animators Pallet. The dining room walls were covered with giant movie screens and the sea turtle Crush from the movie finding nemo would swim I and out of view. Sometimes he would stop and interactively have conversations with dining room guests.  It was pretty magical. Dinner was delicious and dessert was even better! So yummy!
After dinner, we went over to the D Lounge and participated in a game show called Family Fusion. The game was a combination of seeing how well we knew eachother, and Disney trivia. We played against four other families, and WE WON!!! Wahoo! We were given Mickey Mouse medals which the kids wore proudly for the rest of our cruise.
After the game we went to the Walt Disney Theatre and watched a musical show called "the Golden Mickey's. We all enjoyed it so much.
When the show was over, we went back to our room and spent a little time on the veranda before finally going to bed.