Mic & Family - August 2007

Who: Anderson family, Mic & Jeff, Sean (12) and Sarah (9)
When: August 2007
Trip: Cocoa Beach and Kennedy Space Center, 5 nights at Disney, followed by a 7 night Magic for Less group cruise out of Miami, and then 3 nights of free dining at Disney.

DAY 11:
Today's report: Freedom of the Seas Day 3, Labadee Haiti

The announcement was made sometime today that we are sticking to our original itinerary, so back to our originally scheduled adventures. We were at Labadee when we woke up and could see the trees all up the mountain side with the occasional house. We wanted to eat on our verandah but as I hadn't ordered room service last night, it was now going to take at least an hour. So I come up with the bright idea to run up to windjammer and grab some breakfast and bring it down. BAD plan with my kids. DD overloads her plate completely and it's a mess of waffles and pancakes and blueberry syrup. DH ends up running the kids plates down and comes back up. In the meantime I discovered a made to order egg area and had ordered 2 eggs sunny side up, I was still waiting when DH returned. So we got our breakfast and headed back down here.

After this it was time to get ready for Labadee. Swimsuit's, sunscreen, towels, my book, air mattresses, and sand toys. DH wasn't quite ready so the kids and I headed down to wait by the elevator. I had the camera in my hand to take pictures and set it down while we were waiting, and yes, got up and left it there. I didn't realize it until we were on the tender, which we had to wait a bit of time to get onto. Thankfully the tenders hold quite a few people so the wait wasn't as bad as it could have been. I stayed onboard and went back to look for the camera. It was gone. So I went to guest services to check on it and someone had turned it in ! The crewmember had me turn it on and show her a picture of me to prove it was mine (good thing I HAD pictures of me!!!).

Alright so back to the island, I run into Mike and Linda and the girls. They are going to head to Dragon's Breath Rock first, as they figure once the girls hit the beach they will not want to leave. I told them we would be on the third beach, to come and find us and then hopped on the trolley. I took the long way so I could get a look at the rest of Labadee. There's an flea market, which from the outside looked like any other flea market, there's also an artisan's craft area where I saw a lot of paintings leaning up against the rocky side of the hill as well as some other art. Down at the one end is where they have the rentals for things like wave runners, as well as the (for an extra fee) water play area with a climbing wall and a big slide. In the other direction there are 3 beaches, most people stop at the first one, which is why we headed to the last one (thanks to a report I read on Cruise Critic). There are trails that would be fun to hike but it was sooo hot.

I found DH and the kids, they had blown up their air mattresses and were floating away happily. DH had some chairs in the shade for us and a big bottle of water for me. We relaxed for awhile, then I headed out to commandeer DD's air mattress, ah it was lovely just floating around in this bay. It was nice and calm so I wasn't being moved out to sea or into the beach all the time. We did a lot of relaxing this day, we never did make it to Dragon's Breath Rock or onto the other trails.

We did head up for lunch (it is served in 3 places, the "main" place by the flea market, then at either end, one being convenient to our spot and nothing in the way of a line. There was a band playing that tried to get me to buy their CD and was trying to get DD to look at their beads but I hustled her out of there. The buffet included hot dogs, hamburgers, jerk chicken (legs) and pork ribs. There was also a salad bar, corn on the cob, Spanish rice and various pastries and desserts. The bar down in this area had some hurricane damage and was not open, so it was beer, water, soda or from the "free" dispensers fruit punch (that DD said is very watery tasting) and ice tea. Mike and Linda never did find us although they tried to, guess we were tucked up too far into the (shaded) corner.

Around 2:30 DD and I headed up to see about getting our hair braided. There was a HUGE line of people waiting to go back to the ship. They told me it was $40 to have it done and I thought I only had $60 on me so I was going to do just DD's, when I went to pay I found I had $80 so then had them do mine. Of course this took twice as long and we were beginning to worry about making it back on time. As soon as we were done we headed for the tender and back onto the ship.

So after showering and emptying sand out of the kids pockets, we decided we were going to blow off dinner tonight. DS wanted to do the teen boogie boarding from 9:30-10:30 and we wanted to watch. Dinner was at 8:45 and wouldn't have worked. So I called our table mates and left them a message we wouldn't be there so they wouldn't wait for us. The kids were now running around with Mike and Linda's girls with orders to check in every so often, so we left them a note we would be on the promenade having a cocktail and munchies and headed down.

We ran into Linda there, and then the kids, and then Jill showed up so we went to the wine bar for some appetizers. We thought they had said they had a cheese plate, and when we asked the waiter told us "Yes I will bring it after you order" (whatever, he wasn't very friendly, thankfully his shift must have ended as the nicer lady served us the 2nd round). Anyways the appetizer comes out and it's bread and breadsticks and some good dips, one was some sort of fish thing, another was a black olive type of spread, and the third really good one was a bruschetta type topping. Jill did head down to sorrento's to get some of their antipasta bar munchies, and then the waitress also brought us an actual CHEESE plate like we had requested from Mr. Grumpy Gills.

Mike and Linda went and had the starter with her parents, then came and joined us for a glass of wine. We tracked down the kids in their room and headed to Johnny Rockets for dinner. It was all very good and we had fun there. The waiter was a lot of fun as well. Jill showed up after her meal at Chops and said it was WONDERFUL food. She also brought the mudslide pie for Linda and I to do research on. (wink).

We headed up for the flowrider teen deal and ran into Nikki and her kids, they were going to ride as well. It's much more fun as an observer when you know more of the kids on there. Andrew showed up shortly as well and we all sat back and watched the kids get a bit better with every ride. Since this was just for 12-17 yr olds and they had two lines going the kids got quite a few turns during the hour.

After this was over DH took both kids to the pool for a night swim while I headed back to lay down. My neck was sore from trying to hold my head still when I got the braids in (no laughing unless you have had it done). I searched the room over looking for our tickets for the next day and couldn't find them, luckily DH went right to them when he returned (and he's not the one that put them there, sigh).

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