This morning we had tickets to
meet the Princesses. None of the
kids were overly thrilled about it, but when on Disney you really should take
advantage of getting up close and personal with some of your favorite
characters, right?
On Disney you have the same
waiter and assistant waiter for all your dinners regardless of what dining room
you are assigned to each evening.After the first dinner our servers knew we were the chocolate milk
family.We went through hundreds
of chocolate milk containers this week – not an exaggeration at all!
After breakfast we also had
tickets to attend the Frozen meet-n-greet.Abigail was off with a new friend and didn’t make it on
time.
The rest of the day was spent
attending shows, watching movies, meeting characters, playing at the pools and
the kids loved spending time in the various kids clubs.
I bought Katie this adorable
hippo swimsuit in the London airport.I’d sent Justin a picture of it while I was in the store considering
whether to buy it and he thought it was for me.
Dinner tonight was in
Rapunzel’s Royal Table – there were some fun characters roaming around…
Justin got up early this
morning to sneak in a bike ride around Copenhagen before we had to return the
bikes. After our late night at the
amusement park it was a bummer that we had to wake the kids up early to get the
bikes back to the bike rental shop. It was still pretty early in the morning so
it was a quiet ride with few pedestrians.
We had one last look at the beautiful canal.
Apparently we still weren’t
able to get a decent picture of the kids at this picturesque spot.
We walked back to the apartment
and packed up all of our things for our next adventure.Lugging our suitcases once again
through the cobblestone streets of Copenhagen we caught a city bus that took us
out to the cruise ship pier.I
like this little video clip as the bus approached the pier because you can see
how small our ship is compared to the other ship in port.It would be interesting to see how
small it was compared to “the largest ship on the sea” we cruised on in February.From our experience though bigger
doesn’t always mean better.
Once on board one of our first destinations
was ice cream.I can’t even
guesstimate how many ice-cream cones our family ate over the next week.Well over a hundred perhaps?And I appreciated that the cones
weren’t the cheap cake cones.Disney provided all the ice cream we wanted in cones that actually
tasted great!They also had an
additional new flavor each day:mango, strawberry, blueberry, mint, banana – yum!
One of the most challenging things
about traveling with five kiddos is feeding them. After 11 days of travel one
of the things I was most excited about today is that for the next week the food
was aplenty, easily accessible, and at no additional cost.We appreciated the buffet today especially.
Mickey Bars for dessert? Yes,
please!
We
had several hours on board before the ship left the pier so we had time to roam
around and check out all the Disney Magic had to offer. It felt smaller than the Disney Fantasy
and for sure smaller than our Royal Caribbean cruise in February, but it’s all
about that Disney “Magic”. We felt
it immediately. It’s strange
because the larger ships on other cruise lines for sure have more activities
and entertainment to offer, but we all said nothing compares to the feeling of cruising
Disney.
The
in ocean windmills were pretty cool.
We saw these in several countries.
The kids stateroom before all their luggage arrived
We couldn’t keep Drew and Katie
from getting into the pools even if we’d tried.Drew went down this slide over and over and over…
And a continuous streaming of
kid-friendly movies poolside – the best!
We attended a show this evening,
which was great, and then it was dinner in the Animator’s Palate – which was a
show in itself as well.
We opted for a late dining time
of 8:30pm for this cruise since we wanted to maximize the time we had in ports
and not feel like we had to rush back to eat dinner.It was the best choice, but made for some late nights.A few nights the littles went to bed
early and we ate in the dining rooms without them.
The night scene on Disney is of
course super family friendly. We
had no hesitation letting the girls stay out until the teen clubs closed –
which meant they didn’t get to bed until 1 or 2 am each night. Gotta soak it all up when you can. They loved the teen areas and both made
friends they were about to connect with throughout the cruise.
I hate waking up sleeping
children, but we had just one full day to enjoy Copenhagen and we were going to
make the most of it. In hindsight I can say it was one of our favorite days of
the entire vacation.
First up was getting our family
equipped with bikes for the day.We picked them up right off the picturesque Nyhavn.
These bright, colorful 17th and
early 18th century buildings along the canal were so dreamy.
It took us a little while to
get all the bikes adjusted and ready to ride.I took this picture…
Right before Abigail took this
picture.Whoops!
No harm done and we were on the
road shortly after – Justin with a renewed sense of the importance of balance.We rode on some country-esque roads out
to Reffen for lunch, which is a eclectic collection of street food, served out
of old shipping containers.
The food vendors weren’t quite
open when we arrived so we had plenty of time to walk around and check out the
options.
Most of the family went with
pulled pork sandwiches, which Carly described as “So Good!”I basically went with dessert and
ordered a nuttela crepe with ice cream and oreos.
After lunch most of our biking
was on city roads, which got a little more complicated and stressful.Aside from a few wrong turns and poor
biking etiquette on our part it was lovely.
We stopped by the Little
Mermaid statue.The kids were not
very impressed and didn’t even bother to walk down to the water to check her
out.
We biked by Amalienborg
Palace just as the changing of the guards was taking place.
We spent the rest of the day/night
at Tivoli Gardens.Tivoli is the
second oldest amusement park in the world and was Walt Disney's inspiration for
Disneyland. So much fun and so beautiful!
The boat ride was pretty funny
cause Drew just so happened to perfectly parallel park their boat at the dock
and it took Abigail a bit to figure out how to get them free.
Drew loved the pirate ride, we
went on it many, many times. He
remains absolutely fearless and would happily go on any ride he was tall enough
for.
We didn’t have high expectations
for Tivoli and thought at most we’d want a half day there, but we couldn’t pull
ourselves away and ended up closing the place down. There were fun rides for all ages and the setting was
absolutely beautiful!
