Happy Mardi Gras, friends!

I haven’t written much lately — it’s been crazy busy around here and things are getting busier as the boys’ baseball practices start up this week.  They’re both playing this year.  Part of why we’re busier is that Dave’s now more active and we can again do family activities.  The cruise really cinched things for us — Dave’s back surgery from October was a resounding success.

For the past week or so I’d been suggesting we take the family to see a Mardi Gras parade in the area.

I guess, in typical Major Mom fashion, I should give you some background to what Mardi Gras is, huh?  Here you go.
While the phrase “Mardi Gras” does literally translate into the words “Fat Tuesday”, which is the day before Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras along the Gulf Coast is actually more of a “season” — between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday.  This is the time to be festive, eat richer foods, imbibe on beverages and just plain party before the more serious penitential Lenten season.

Many Americans are familiar with Carnival season in many parts of the world, such as the largest Carnival there is: Rio de Janiero, Brazil!

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12. February 2012 · Comments Off on Our Disney Cruise, Part 6: AquaDuck! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Today’s post will be about AquaDuck, a 765-foot water slide that will only be found on the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy (when the Fantasy is commissioned later this month).  They’re the only cruise ships in the world with complete water slides on board.  I had to wait until my waterproof camera pictures were developed to do this one and I’m so excited about it!  AquaDuck starts inside the rear funnel and travels from the stern of the ship towards the bow, then goes under the bow funnel (behind the Funnel Vision screen) and then continues back toward the stern of the ship again, depositing you right at the bottom of the stairs so you can hop right back in line!

The view of AquaDuck from the docks in Nassau.
Guests get to enjoy a great view of the pool deck while riding.

If you’ve been to a water park, then there’s little more to be said about the ride.  It’s a standard inner tube-type of ride.  It’s a lot of fun!  I like how Disney (again) puts the kids first by allowing VERY young children to ride with a grownup.  I don’t think there’s a minimum size to ride, I saw kids as young as three years old riding with adults. My sons were allowed to ride alone, they are both taller than 44″.

I want to share some other fun things that make AquaDuck really cool for a Disney Geek like me.

There’s an adorable comic strip to read while waiting for AquaDuck — strangely, though, you have to read it from right to left. This was taken with a waterproof film camera and the viewfinder was tough to navigate.
The rest of the comic. Which shows Donald overdoing things on the ride and smashing into the fore funnel. Ha ha! 
And there’s Donald in the funnel! Yikes!

I was also fascinated with the conveyor machine that transports the rafts back up to the top of the ride. You can see it behind the kids in this picture:

There’s a conveyor that brought the rafts from the end of the ride straight up to the top. I also liked that my boys are old enough and tall enough (over 48″) to ride it together without an adult on board. 

I took a waterproof camera with me to get some pictures of the ride itself, such as the trip through the forward funnel, but the ride was so exciting I forgot I had the camera with me till the very end. I got this picture below, but then found out that due to safety concerns, no cameras are allowed on the ride.

WHEE! It was a wild ride down to the base of the attraction, where that cast member to the right asked me to not take cameras on the ride in the future. Oops!
08. February 2012 · Comments Off on Our Disney Cruise, Part 5: Disney Art Throughout The Ship · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,
Disney artwork graces the passageways and staterooms of the Disney Dream. There’s even a full-sized art gallery on board, where guests can purchase original and prints of Disney art. Photo by Flickr user Casajump, used with permission.

I couldn’t get over the beautiful Disney storyboard and concept art throughout the Disney Dream. If you sail on a Disney Cruise Line ship, make sure you take the time to stroll around the enjoy the art.

And if you want to take some of the art home with you, pay a visit to the Vista Gallery. This is where guests can browse original Disney art and pieces related to the Disney Dream and Castaway Cay. Many of the pieces are for sale, and several are featured in a silent auction. In addition, popular prints are sold for a nominal cost and make very elegant cruise souvenirs.

In the staterooms, there were two prints hanging on the walls.  It appears that the same prints are in most rooms on the Disney Dream, and Dave and I were disappointed that we couldn’t buy a print of the art deco design of the four Disney Cruise Line ships.

We have nautical art prints and photography in our bedroom at home. This print, which is featured in most Disney Dream staterooms, would be the perfect compliment to our design, but alas it wasn’t for sale. Note the names of the four ships below each hull.  Photo by Flickr user Insidethemagic.

I really loved looking at the storyboard art and rough sketches along the stairwells and passageways — designs that we knew would later become the films and cartoons that make Walt Disney famous. They had prints of basic Steamboat Willie ideas, Pixar storyboards and celluoid prints. And now I share some of my favorites with you!

The long passageway leading towards the Animator’s Palete restaurant is lined with rough sketches of over 20 Disney heroines, from Snow White to Rapunzel and everyone in between. I found my favorite among them!
This is one of the “Enchanted Art” pieces, the poster converts into a Silly Symphony with a Russian theme. 

These next three pictures are probably my favorites on the entire ship. They were tucked away on either Deck 1 or 2 towards the back of the ship (the “aft” stairwell). Three 4-panel pieces in a row showing a scene from a Pixar movie from storyboard to completed CGI! This is from The Incredibles. 
From Finding Nemo. 
From Cars.
07. February 2012 · Comments Off on Our Disney Cruise, Part 4: Biometrics and Photography · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
I took many cute pictures of the boys playing at the beach at Castaway Cay. Disney shipboard professional photographers wandered the island taking pictures also. Because we were in the water, I didn’t have a Key to the World card with which the photographer could associate the picture. “That’s okay”, he says. How can that be?
Here’s what the professional photographer captured just a few minutes later.  Thanks to biometrics, this otherwise “unassociated” picture found its way into our stateroom account folio.

Some of you might say, “Wow that’s really cool!” and some of you might say, “Wow, that’s really creepy!”

It’s no secret that cruise lines offer comprehensive portraiture services on board.  And it’s also no secret that on a cruise your party will be pulled aside all over the place to grab pictures for your purchase later. There’s an area on all the Disney Cruise Line ships called “Shutters” where hard-copy portfolios of all of your pictures are available as soon as 2 hours after they’re taken.  Photography is prohibited in Shutters, so I couldn’t share how cool this place is: touch your Key to the World card to one of the touchpads throughout the shop and a screen will tell you where your stateroom account’s folio is.

In our case, we were assigned “Donald Yellow 5”. Which meant the Donald bookcase, the folio marked #5 in the row of yellow folders.  The area looks like an elegant library. This video shows the bookcases starting at about 0:30.

We weren’t shy about the photo opportunities. I think Dave was getting rather sick of it, but I like that there is no obligation to purchase. And you never know when you might have a winner in there. (Especially when I’m usually the one BEHIND the camera and it was nice to be in front of it every once in a while.) We had over 50 prints in our folio by the end of our four-night cruise; only about 10 of them were worth keeping.  Jacob blinks a lot, and Dave’s glasses produced a lot of glares.

I just this week got the copyright release for these pictures and will scan in nice copies.  In the meantime, you can view slightly better versions of the professional pictures here.

So there we were enjoying the beach on Castaway Cay. We had rented inner tubes for the boys to float around in. At one point a photographer was wading around along the water/sand line, photographing guests. It was nice in that he didn’t photograph children without the parents’ permission, and my son posed like a champ.

But I didn’t have my Key to the World card with which I could associate the picture. “That’s okay,” said the nice young photographer. And he snapped a couple pictures and moved on to the next family.

Lo and behold, that evening when we checked our folio our two water pictures were in the folio!!!  You can see the one we bought in the lower right corner of the picture above.

How could that be? Easy. Disney biometrics.

Bio…what? Bio as in life, metrics as in mathematics. In this case, Disney employs facial recognition technology to compare pictures of “unknown” guests to other photos that have already been taken during the cruise. So if you had a picture taken already during the cruise, and it was already associated with a stateroom account via a Key to the World card, the software can find the unassociated picture’s home: your folio.

For those who didn’t have any pictures and didn’t have anything to associate, a wall on one side of Shutters displayed all the “unknown” faces.

You’ve seen this before. Facebook has “Tag Recommendations“, iPhoto has the “Faces” feature, and Picasa Web Albums has the “People” feature.

I had talked about this Castaway Cay photo association with some fellow cruise guests and they pointed out that it seemed rather creepy to them. We all hoped that none of the biometric information is saved once the cruise is over.

What do you think? Biometric face recognition: cool or creepy?

05. February 2012 · Comments Off on Our Disney Cruise, Part 3: The Animator’s Palate · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
I had heard SO MUCH about the Animator’s Palette restaurant on Disney Cruises. Boy was I in for a surprise on the Disney Dream!

Last summer, before my husband and I had booked our cruise, I had received some recent gouge on taking Disney cruises from a couple of Air Force family friends. One of the families’ favorite parts of the cruise was their dinner experience at the Animator’s Palate restaurant.

But first, a little background on the Disney dinner experience. If you so choose, you and your party will have seating arranged at each of the three formal restaurants. The order of the restaurants is coded on your Key to the World card. For example, my card had the letters “ERAA”, so for our four-night cruise, we ate at Enchanted Garden first, then the Royal Table, then the Animator’s Palate two nights in a row. Why two nights in a row? Because the first of those two nights was the Pirates IN the Caribbean theme dinner — all restaurants converted for the theme night (that’s for another post!).

As I’d mentioned in Part 1, the waitstaff travels among the restaurants so we had the same service team all four nights.

Of the three restaurants, the Animator’s Palate is the most fun and most interactive.

So my friend who was so excited about the Animator’s Palate dinner experience gave me so many details. She told me about how the entire restaurant starts in black and white. The tables, the waitstaff are dressed in black and white, the screens on the wall are covered in first-level black and white concept art. Over the course of the dinner, the waitstaff is slowly adding color to their outfits, and the art on the walls is slowly transforming into Disney’s final visions. Read more about the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder Animator’s Palette experience here.

I was very surprised at how different our Animator’s Palate experience was on the Disney Dream.  We entered the restaurant with the very basic sketches on the screens, but our waitstaff were wearing their black and white shirts with bright teal ties — that looked like a bubbly ocean.

Our server Dimi in his Animator’s Palette uniform. The tie matches the East Australia Current theme of the accompanying show.

During our appetizer course, our screens transformed from the basic storyboard sketches into scenes from Finding Nemo’s Great Barrier Reefs. The lighting in the restaurant transformed into a spectrum of blues and greens. Characters from Finding Nemo appeared to greet the diners, and the kids enjoyed numerous games of “guess what the silver fish school is making”.

Characters swim around the coral reef screens.

All through dinner the kids were enjoying the silver fish school making shapes. Sharks, octopus, a clown fish, a cruise ship and in this case, a birthday cake!

Then Crush, the 150-year-old tortoise from Finding Nemo, makes his rounds throughout the restaurant visiting guests. This is a truly enchanting experience — if you’ve ever experienced the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor attraction at Magic Kingdom or Turtle Talk with Crush at EPCOT, this is similar. Crush singles out dinner guests and carries on direct conversations with them. We were fortunate that Crush found my youngest son and the following conversation took place:

How enchanting is that?

Of course, we adults were curious about how this was working. The technology for this was borrowed from those same attractions at other Disney Parks, thanks to innovations at Disney Imagineering.  It didn’t take us long to find the panels that didn’t quite look like the others — the cameras must have been hidden behind them!

Look at the upper left. There is a green-bordered screen with pictures of Mr. Frederickson from Up. What you don’t see is the wire coming from behind the panel. There’s the camera!

The dinner show concludes with some lessons at having fun and being laid back (lots of shouts of “Awesome!” and “DUDE!” resonate around the dining room) before the room transforms back into the storyboard sketches and the colors return to what we had upon entering the restaurant.

So even though our experience was different than what guests on the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder receive, it was still delightful and incredibly memorable, especially for the kids!

The “Midship Detective Agency” on the Disney Dream lets the kids interact with the Enchanted Art on the ship to solve a mystery. 

One of the unique features of the Disney Dream is their 22 pieces of “Enchanted Art” scattered among all of the artwork on their fourteen decks. In a Harry Potter-esque manner, random pictures on the wall will come to life! This is fun for the kids and adults alike!

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I know most of you knew that we took a Disney cruise about 2 weeks ago.  And perhaps you were wondering why I wasn’t writing about it?  It’s because I had promised GeekMom.com several posts about our trip and I wanted to get those posts out there first.  It’s easy enough now to translate the text over to my own blog, which I’m going to do now.  I’ve drafted 7 posts about the cruise, and they aren’t the normal “Here’s how our cruise was” type of posts.  Enjoy!

Santa brought the family a 4-night Disney cruise vacation this year! The trip happened to coincide with Timmy’s birthday. In a very uncharacteristic move, Dave and I agreed to take the boys out of school for a solid week and drove out to Port Canaveral, Florida, the homeport to the Disney Dream, Disney Cruise Line’s most-recently christened* ship.

Learn more about Disney Cruise Lines through their website.  Check out Wikipedia for the Disney Dream‘s amazing statistics. Or better yet, how about the Disney Dream by the Numbers?

Our sons unwrapped big boxes with these certificates inside on Christmas morning.

I don’t plan to discuss too much about the cruise itself. Anyone can write about taking a cruise, right? We stopped in Nassau, Bahamas and on Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay. Our sons got to experience snorkeling for the first time. I’ve cruised with Carnival in the past, but that didn’t hold a candle to last week’s trip! My family was geeking-out at some of the amazing little subtleties that make the Disney Cruise Line experience second-to-none!

1.) Hidden Mickeys everywhere!

Need I say more?

It goes without saying that the “Hidden Mickeys” are everywhere. This one isn’t quite so hidden, though.

2.) Characters everywhere!

Obviously there are Disney characters on a Disney cruise, right? After having experienced many hours in line over the years waiting to meet Mickey, Minnie, Pooh Bear, Rafiki, Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Frederickson at Walt Disney World, it was a breath of fresh air to not have to wait long for characters at all. My sons filled up their autograph book on a family trip to Disneyworld in 2009, so they were rather lassiez-faire about the characters this time around.  In fact, we only waited in line for ONE character: Jack Sparrow! Most of the others we encountered almost by chance throughout the cruise ship.

When your very first elevator ride to your stateroom is with Donald Duck, the bar has been set pretty high.

3.) The Key to the World

Like other cruise lines, many things are tied in to the key card. Disney calls their card the “Key to the World“, whether you’re on the cruise or staying at a Disney resort on land.  If you are combining a cruise with a Walt Disney World vacation, the same card will have your resort key, park tickets and Disney Dining Plan information loaded onto it.

On the Disney Dream, we used the key card to enter our stateroom, turn on the lights, enter/exit the ship at ports of call, tie into a photography account when the onboard photographers take snapshots, drop off/pick up your children from the Oceaneer’s Club, and charge beverages and souvenirs.

The Disney Dream is so new that instead of swiping the key card in many places, we instead had a touch pad. Similar to MasterCard PayPass touch pads. To enter/exit our staterooms, the kids didn’t even have to remove the keycards from their lanyards. Just touch the card to the pad. We used similar touch pads for entering/exiting the ship.

The little black keypad above the door handle is a touch pad for the key card. The kids didn’t have to pull their cards out of their lanyard pockets to open/close the door!

Another thing the key card is used for is to control the electricity in your stateroom.  I found this a great energy-conservation tool.  There was a slot near the front door for the key card.  A card needed to be in the slot before lights or the television could be turned on.  I discovered that it didn’t matter what card was used for the switch — I’m guessing it was a manual connection switch in the slot somewhere.  I saw a stateroom host using a Sleep Inn keycard while cleaning a nearby stateroom, ha ha!

Using key cards to control room electricity is not new technology, I know.  It’s been commonplace in hotels in Europe and Asia for years.

4.) RFID Bands for the Kids’ Clubs

From MouseTalesTravel.com

Each child ages 3-10 who wants to participate in the Oceaneer Club or Oceaneer Lab kids’ clubs on the Disney Dream are outfitted with waterproof wristbands. Called “Mickey Bands”.  These two kids’ clubs together (they’re connected) offer over 10,000 square feet of playspace, covering everything from playground space to arts and crafts to interactive play. You may fit the children for the wristbands in the cruise terminal before boarding, at the registration temporary office as soon as your board, or any time during the cruise at the Kids’ Club check-in/check-out area (which I don’t recommend because there’s often a line of parents that you tend to hold up while the attendant is printing and fitting the wristband).

It seemed simple enough for the kids to tap their wrists to the gate to enter and exit. Very secure! You provide a password through the Disney website that approved adults can use to check out the kids from the secure areas.

NOTE: As a safety measure, the kids club policies changed significantly starting in January 2012. Whereas previously parents could freely participate with their children at any time, now the kids’ clubs offer “Open House” and “Secured” areas. If you desire your child to be at the kids’ clubs without parents present, they have to go to the “Secured” area and no other parents are allowed in. Only DCL child care employees. If the family desires to do the kids’ club activities together they can take advantage of “Open House” periods in 2-4 hour blocks throughout the cruise.

Another hidden feature of the RFID bands — the geeky part — is that in the kids’ club spaces, the wristband is transmitting what rooms you child travels to. This helps the counselors maintain their ratios and helps the parents quickly find their children when it’s pick-up time.

5.) The Automatic Hand Washing Machine!

It’s an automatic hand-washing machine! Before the kids entered the Oceaneer’s Club or Oceaneer’s Lab, their forearms were dunked into this machine for 30 seconds. Washed and rinsed!

Also in the kids’ club areas were these most-awesome machines. Automatic hand-washers! The kids simply stick their arms inside and the machine automatically starts. Water spirals around your hands and forearms, then soapy water, then another cycle of fresh water. All in about 25 seconds. Take out your arms and dry them off!

6.) The Amazing Cast

Unlike other cruise lines, families aboard Disney Cruise Line trips are assigned the same service team for dinner dining and stateroom care throughout the entire cruise.  This has both benefits and drawbacks.

Of course, a benefit is that you get to know several of the cast members.  This is great for the kids.  We had very friendly servers and the stateroom host was a sweetheart.  At the end of the cruise, you are presenting gratuities to the servers and stateroom host themselves, instead of their pooling the money.  Our boys learned quite a bit about Bulgaria from our assistant server, Dimi.  Dimi was relatively new and was practicing his Mickey-Mouse ears-shaped ketchup every night.

One of the drawbacks is that I could imagine if someone received substandard service (which wouldn’t be tolerated for long by Disney Cruse Lines, I’d imagine), you’re left with that server for the duration.  I didn’t see this, so let’s just hope this is purely hypothetical.

Meet Drenka from Peru and Dimi from Bulgaria, our dinnertime servers during our entire cruise.

If you’re celebrating while on board, stand back! Disney gives you several opportunities to tell them whether you’re getting married (there were several weddings during our cruise), celebrating an anniversary or birthday, or on a honeymoon. Since our youngest son was celebrating his 7th birthday during the cruise, they gave him a button to wear. Cast members left and right would say “Happy Birthday” to our son as we were walking throughout the ship and on Castaway Cay.

My youngest son was allowed to wear a “Happy Birthday” button during the cruise. Cast members were wishing him “Happy Birthday” constantly. Here, Jack Sparrow is wishing him Happy Birthday. Look at that face!  You can’t beat it!

7.) Disney Movies Galore at the Buena Vista Theater

Are there any Disney films in theaters while you’re sailing?  If so, you have several opportunities to see them during the cruise for no additional charge.

I was thrilled to see Beauty and the Beast 3D being offered but I didn’t get to see any movies during the cruise.  It’s tough debating what items to cut from the packed schedule.

Warhorse and The Muppets were also showing.  Other movies offered included The Help, Cars 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

8.) A Cruise Ship Tradition: Turn-Down Service, Disney Style

Anyone who’s been on a cruise vacation knows that the stateroom host makes up your room in the morning, and then during dinner he/she comes in and performs a “turn-down service”.  For our particular stateroom, this meant pulling the bunk bed down from the ceiling, laying out chocolates and leaving the kids a cool towel origami animal to enjoy.

Good night!

The bottom bunk is the couch with the back flipped down. The top bunk came down from the ceiling! 
Stars and constellations of Peter Pan, Wendy and the other Darling children graced the kids’ top bunk.

How adorable is this? Sleepy Dwarf chocolates every night on our beds!

This is typical for most cruise lines: towel origami. But this is definitely the first time we had a monkey hanging from our ceiling!

Stay tuned for additional posts about our family trip aboard the Disney Dream. Coming soon, the Midship Detective Agency (and other biometrics), the Animator’s Palette, AquaDuck! and the stunning Disney art on the ship.

*The Disney Fantasy is currently undergoing sea trials in Europe and is scheduled for her first voyage in March 2012. Follow her upcoming journey across the Atlantic for her 28 February christening in Manhattan on Twitter.

01. February 2012 · 3 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

I’m baaaack….

I’ve been VERY scarce lately since I was out of town for 17 days in January.

So let’s play a little catch up, shall we?

[OKAY VEGETARIAN READERS, YOU MIGHT WANT TO STOP HERE]

First I want to show off our new toy, a SMOKER, which we bought with some money my parents had sent for Christmas.

Here it is!  Thanks to our local Bass Pro Shops and my parents!

Dave and I had been wanting a smoker for a VERY long time.  Experiencing some Thanksgiving turkey at Dave’s squadron that came out of a smoker cinched it.  The week before Christmas, we headed over to our local Bass Pro Shops (in Destin) where we chose a 30″ tall compact electric smoker.  The model we chose is relatively lightweight, was easy to use for day-to-day cooking, yet is big enough to handle a holiday turkey!

Which is why we bought it in time for Christmas!

The first thing we did?  Of course, a brisket!

Tasty, but not quite tender enough.  We have a lot to learn.

Before the Christmas turkey, we gave the smoker a test run with a small flat-end brisket.  We even stuck in a probe thermometer and geeked out watching the temperature hold around 150F as the connective tissues take time to break down.  But we didn’t cook it for long enough.  Parts of the brisket were tender, but many parts weren’t.  Tender or not, the smoke flavor was outstanding and we muddled through quite a bit of it just the same, the boys too!

Later in the week, after lots of internet research, we attempted our 13-lb. turkey.

We run the probe thermometer through the vent.  This is an inexpensive model from Wal Mart.  The probe line will get covered in smoke residue so I don’t recommend investing in a super-expensive one.  Just make sure it’s accurate.

It came out spectacular.  I’m awful at roasting turkeys in the oven.  Even with that pop-up thermometer, while the breast would be juicy and delicious, the thigh meat wouldn’t be cooked through.  Or if the thigh meat was cooked through, the breast meat would be dried out.  Ugh on both counts!

Our Thanksgiving turkey just before coming out of the smoker.  It was spectacular.

We had the thermometer alarm us when the temperature reached 155F, turned off the smoker, and then let “carry over” take the thigh temperature up to 160F.

For the first time, everything was cooked through properly.  We might have been able to take out the turkey a little sooner, the breast meat was borderline dry, but the dark meat was oh-so-perfect!

This morning I just put some Kansas City-style rub on a rack of spare ribs and in a couple hours I’ll be popping it in the smoker for 6-7 hours.  We tried this about a month ago and it didn’t cook nearly long enough.  This time we’re just going to let it go until the meat falls off the bone!

Let meat come to room temperature before putting it in the smoker.  Why?  Energy savings!  You can probably save about an hour of electricity that would otherwise be used to bring the meat from refrigerator temperature up to room temperature.