Luxury at the end of the day

It’s 8:20, and Brandon and I return to the Suite to find that Bob has already turned in for the evening. I change into some sweats for lounging around, and we turn the TV – okay, TVs – to the channel showing the Hercules "Muse-ical." The show is really funny, and entertaining – and quite honestly, I think I enjoy it as much or more as I ever have seeing it live. It’s very nice to be relaxing in luxury with the ship’s stage show beamed to our hi-def television!

I show Benjamin the Mater pin, and his eyes bug out! But as he looks through his lanyard for a pin to trade me for it, I realize that all of his pins are either Lilo & Stitch or Cars pins. I just can’t bring myself make him part with any of them, so I give him the pin without requiring a trade in return. I have too many pins anyway.

Brandon is in and out of the Suite during the show, I think wanting to play the part of the independent teenager who gets out on his own at night, but not yet willing to stay away from his family for too long.

After the show, Linda goes to bed and Benjamin heads to the bathtub – he’s delighted that he can see Finding Nemo on the bathroom TV while he’s in the tub. All of us start winding down except Brandon, who goes to Aloft for the “411” teen welcome party. He’s back some time later, saying that there’s not much happening there.

The shipboard TVs always have a couple of movies running on various channels. Since Hercules we’ve been flipping back and forth between Nemo and Jungle Book. Monsters, Inc. will be coming on soon, and I intend to watch some of it from that big, inviting, whirlpool tub, now that Benjamin and Becky have both had their turn.

I run some deliciously hot water, crank up the TV, and lower myself into the tub. It is deep and feels heavenly – and that's before I even turn on the whirlpool jets. I hit the on/off switch, and ...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

My sore feet needed this. Heck, my whole body needed this. This is a Disney-lover’s dream, soaking my theme-park aches away while laughing with Mike and Sully. I debate whether to spend the entire night in here.

Then I debate whether to spend the entire cruise in here.

After thirty minutes or so of bliss, I decide to bring my first-class bath experience to an end – for now, at least, knowing we will still be here for a couple more nights.

The kids are tucked into bed, also watching Monsters Inc. on their television, when I get out. We’ve got our traditional early start tomorrow morning – up with Bob to watch the sunrise. Bob is typically an early riser, but I surprised him on our first cruise together in 2003 by getting up on our first morning to join him. We ended up having a great time, drinking coffee, watching the sun rise, and playing basketball on the Wide World of Sports deck. Brandon joined us in 2005, and now Benjamin is planning on continuing the tradition with us.

Let’s see – sunrise will be at 6:57, so an alarm time of 6:40 will do, so long as we have clothes ready to throw on.

There is one last issue to fix before we go to sleep. There are sliding doors between the kids’ bedroom (formerly the sitting room) and the living room, and between their room and our bedroom. Ideally, we’d like them closed, but the latches are difficult for me to work even in the light, so the kids would for sure have trouble getting them open if they had to get up in the middle of the night. But with the ship rocking, we either need the doors all the way open – where they click in place – or latched.

We finally settle on leaving their door to the living room open. On most mornings that would be an issue with Bob rising early and turning on the TV, but tomorrow we’ll be up early with him.

With that, I set the sleep timers on the TVs and we all quickly fall asleep. Given that we awoke in the Polynesian Resort this morning, got stranded on Test Track, had a bus ride to Port Canaveral, and are now ending the day in the Walter E. Disney Suite on the Disney Wonder, this has been one special and amazing day.