Relaxing in luxury

Brandon opens the envelope that was waiting for him as we entered the suite, and finds a personal invitation to him to come to the teen club, Aloft, for the “411” meeting tonight. That’s a nice touch.

He and Benjamin want to get out and explore the ship for a few minutes, so we let them go with warnings to be back very soon!

We have a a little time still to explore our Suite before the 4:00 lifeboat drill. On the coffee table in the living room is the typical menu of services, including room services options, that all cabins get. But there is an additional concierge folder, which has a few pages of personalized stationery for us, a list of DVDs we can order from the concierge, and full menus from each of the three main onboard restaurants – as concierge-level guests, we can get anything off of the menu of any of the restaurants delivered by room service!

In fact, there is a separate, metal-covered menu from Palo, the exclusive adults-only restaurant. Bob tells us that, according to Lars, only guests in the two Disney Suites can order room service from Palo. Hmmm. I may have to see about getting to try Palo’s famous chocolate soufflé!

I peruse the bookshelves in the sitting room and find a book on etiquette. Those always seem to be interesting reading to me – mostly to see how far I deviate from what is socially acceptable, I suppose. I’m curious whether these books have any connection to Walt Disney. Upon finding that the book I’ve chosen was published in the 1980’s, though, I suspect not. Still, I setting down in a comfortable chair by the veranda door and read a little to relax.

Brandon and Benjamin return with reports that they went up to Deck 9, got a few pictures on deck, and Brandon briefly joined a pickup basketball game on the Wide World of Sports deck. And they saw a rainbow!

It’s approaching 4:00 now, and in-cabin announcements (preceded by the delightful “When You Wish Upon a Star” chime) are urging us to begin assembling on Deck 4. Time to don our life jackets.

Bob and I pull the life preservers out of our walk-in closets. They are a different design than I recall from previous cruises, both less bulky and able to fold up smaller for storage in the closet.

Knowing that it is still cold outside, we all put on jackets before we add the life preservers. It takes just a second to figure out how the life vests go on. Wearing these things is always entertaining – okay, really it’s just entertaining seeing other people in your family wearing them – and the contrast between being dressed for going into the ocean and the luxury of the Suite is striking. I try not to think of Titanic.