Amazing Cruise Adenture Day 1: ALL ABOARD!!!

 (Note:  Sorry this post is late....it is now Thursday morning here on the ship but last night as I was trying to upload all the images in this....after 1am...blogspot actually went down on me and I ended up being up until after 2am fighting with it and using up my internet minutes and couldn't get it to work...so had to get up early and hope it was fixed this morning...which it was....I hope you all appreciate my dedication to my loyal readers!! LOL)

Well we're aboard the ship and Day 1 is coming to a close.  Our main image here is our door mini-magnet for the day.  If you recall my previous post about door magnets, you'll remember that we created one large main magnet that surrounds our stateroom number door-sign and creates a "frame" for a separate mini-magnet for each day of the cruise.  From this point forward, the main image for each blog will be the magnet-o-the day....so you'll have to imagine that magnet within the larger one on our door and then also imagine all 24 of them getting scattered along the lower portion of our door as the cruise proceeds, as well!

Anyhow....today was a very eventful day...lots to do but a great day! (And it's late now and I probably should go to bed....but just for all you loyal readers I am staying up to post a blog....thank heavens tomorrow is a sea day and we can sleep in a little bit! *wink*).  So on today's agenda was to get to the ship, board the ship, meet the Adventures by Disney guides, do the safety drill, hand out lanyards to our fellow back-to-back cruisers (there are about 30 of us who ordered lanyards....and then at least a dozen more we met who are B2B but who opted out of lanyards), and then also have dinner and enjoy ourselves, as well!!

Two Years of Waiting----& It's FINALLY Here!!

I kind of wish this picture (taken with my phone) that I took when we woke up this morning had turned out better (and those darn sky scrapers weren't blocking our view LOL)....but this is, indeed, what we woke up to: an amazing sunrise in a nearly perfect sky over a beautiful, calm, blue, glassy sea-----a PERFECT day to board the Disney Magic (for those who don't already know, that is the name of the ship we'll be spending the next 24 nights on)!!

Tuesday: Our Day in Barcelona

Well today was our 1st day here in Europe and it was a nice day...but a bit on the tiring side.  We were already kind of beat from the flight and everything.  When I posted earlier this morning we had thought we might take a power nap before heading out...but thought better of it and so we just showered, had some caffeine and set out to see the city-----which involved quite a bit of walking...so I think we're both going to sleep well and early tonight, but hopefully that will help get us back in a normal rhythm for the rest of our trip. 

We're here!!

We have landed safely and have arrived at our hotel.  This is only going to be a very brief post----because we are tired and feel dirty so we want to shower and take a nap for an hour or so...but I wanted everyone to know we landed safely.

Waiting At The Airport....So Thought I'd Share A Bit...

Well, here we sit in the Orlando airport.  We got out of our resort and to the airport to drop off the rental car and check in for our 2:30pm flight around 11:30am (we were prepared for longer lines because it's a holiday weekend and the need to check in extra early because we're checking in for an international flight).  We were through security and sitting at our gate by 11:55am...so we were probably a little earlier than we needed to be----but that's fine.  We had to leave the resort anyway and so we'll just hang out here, have soemthing for lunch, play on the internet and watch movies and read. Hopefully the other movies we brought will be better than "Where the Wild Things Are"....and I have several books in my new phone on my kindle app.  While we were in Orlando, I actually read "The Brief Second Life of Bree Tanner"----a short companion novel to the Twilight series written by Stephenie Meyer from the perspective of the young girl vampire killed by the Volturi at the end of the Eclipse novel.  I really rather enjoyed it I must say!!  now I have another of her novels to read and have also downloaded both of Chelsea Handler's books and Kathy Griffin's, as well (two of my favorite totally inappropriate female comediennes)!

So.....here we sit in Orlando with some time to kill waiting anxiously for the next phase of our trip to begin........

Sunday: Another Hard Day in Orlando

The back entrance of our resort: Disney's Beach Club villas

Ok....so the title of today's blog isn't entirely true----it wasn't another HARD day....in fact it was quite a relaxing day----what it was was another HOT day.  I haven't posted much thus far about the weather here in Orlando...but let me see...how to describe it? Oh yes...it has largely felt like the Earth's molten core is about to bubble up right through the ground at any moment! LOL  Seriously it is HOTTER THAN HADES down here! It's been averaging over 90 for most of the day...and the sun is just beating down like a fiend!  We have had no rain or hurricanes while we were here...so that is good...but I have to be honest....the heat has been a bit insufferable.  Thank heavens we spent most of the day Saturday at  water park (although we were just dripping with sweat at Sea World)!  Sunday we decided, since we'd done all the amusement parking we had hoped, to have a relatively lazy/relaxing day----a nice breakfast, maybe miniature golf, swim time, and dinner with friends.

Our Saturday Part 2: Sea World

So, as I said in my Aquatica post, we left the water park around 3pm and headed over to Sea World.  It's literally across the street although you have to drive around the block to get to the parking lot.  (Another tip for those of you who may read these blogs and decide you want to head to Orlando and vacation----when there is a chance to buy "Premium Parking"...shell out the extra $3-$5 for it.  It gets your car way closer to the gate of the park which, in the morning means you get in a little faster....but more importantly, it means at the end of a long day when you're tired your car is closer and you don't have so far to walk! LOL)