I like Disney's method of saying good-bye. It softens the blow of a fun vacation coming to an end, and it's good business practice to subtly influence and invite vacation-goers to come back for more. Instead of saying "Good-bye" or "Best wishes," they say "See Ya Real Soon!," which doesn't have nearly the ring of finality to it that "good-bye" has, since the implication is that you'll be back again, hopefully sooner rather than later. We gladly took the bait and booked our next cruise at a discount before we left the ship. We'll be spending New Year's in the Caribbean aboard the Disney Dream. See ya real soon, indeed! :-)
Anyway, this is my last Disney cruise post, except for a list of cruise posts that I'll put together tomorrow so that I have them all in one place. I'm sorry my blog has turned into a bit of a travelogue lately, but it is my blog, darn it! I have lots of other things to write about and I'll do that when I come back in the fall.
On our last night of the cruise, Peter and John went to a farewell show in the lobby. Sam was asleep so I stayed in the room and packed our things up. The show was cute and they had a good time. This was also when John got to meet the princesses.
The next morning we had to be up and out of our rooms and down to breakfast by 6:45. That is early when you've gotten used to sleeping in all week! It was still dark out when we were getting ready to go. I took this picture looking out of our window at Port Canaveral once the ship docked. This was the same view that greeted us a week earlier when we left, only it was daylight then and we had a whole fun-filled week ahead of us.
As soon as we were done with breakfast, we left the ship, got our luggage, went through customs, and went outside to wait for our car to arrive to take us to the airport. Everything went smoothly and quickly until it was time to wait for the car, which took awhile, and then it started downpouring. Luckily we were under an overhang so we didn't get wet. Hey, if it was going to rain on the cruise, the day we left was the day best day for that to happen!
John was so sad to be leaving. Look at that face!
We had a direct flight from Orlando to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then a 3-1/2-hour drive home from there. Everything went fine EXCEPT that the battery in our car was completely dead when we arrived to pick it up at the hotel we'd stayed at a week earlier in Milwaukee, and we had to wait awhile for AAA to come and replace it. The Disney magic had definitely come to an end!
Then the day after we got back, it snowed all day, even though it was nearing the end of March and we'd just been in such warm, beautiful places. We were back to reality with a resounding splat, dead car battery and snow and all. Welcome home!
But it was good to be home and to have had many happy and memorable experiences. I had a pile of mementos waiting to be organized, not to mention hundreds of pictures on my camera that had to be uploaded, sifted through, and edited.
We had such a great week on the Disney Fantasy. I highly recommend going on a Disney cruise for a high-quality, fun-filled, memorable family vacation. I'm so glad that we did it, and we can't wait to do it again!
