We are on Day 2 of our cruise and it is a sea day!  I LOVE days at sea.  I like seeing things on the land and exploring different areas of port but nothing says vacation to me like an empty schedule and nothing but ocean waves greeting you off the deck.  I love being able to just enjoy things on the ship, relax, and not have a schedule of things to try to crunch in.  The Disney ship doesn't have as many things going on as the other ships I have been on have but there is definitely fun and relaxation to be had for sure!

We started off our day with breakfast at the Royal Court.  There is nothing like being able to walk into a restaurant and have something made fresh for you while wearing your slip flops and shorts.  For breakfast, Lara had oatmeal with a mango yogurt, I had a vegetarian omelette, and Cristian had cereal with toast.  We dropped Cristian off at the kid's club and headed to the spa for our Metabolism Testing.  I learned some interesting things I didn't know about my body.  According to the machine they hook you up to - I have 78 pounds of fat in my body and the rest is lean muscle mass.  I need to lose 49 pounds of fat which will bring me 21% body fat, 29.6 pounds of fat, and a goal weight of 141 pounds.  My metabolic rate was computed at 1539 calories in a resting state.  The surprising aspect of this was my acid level.  Ideally, you want your body in an alkaline state.  As a newborn you are born with a neutral PH level of 7.365 which is an alkaline state, however, chemicals you breathe, ingest, eat, etc… as well as all the additives and preservatives in your food will create more of an acidic environment in your body.  The liver is the only fat burning organ we have.  It actually takes fat and it turns it into sugar which then feeds your muscles as energy.  The problem with having a high acid level is that the acid sits right under the fat and attacks it.  In turn, your fat cells end up being surrounded by fluid which means in order to burn/eliminate fat in those areas around your lymph nodes (which are the trouble areas to lose in) you have to get your liver and your "drain" detoxified and cleared so that your liver can properly break down the fat cells and access them.  The only way to break through the fluid surrounding the fat cells is to neutralize the acid that is creating the problem.  Well, my acid level is very high.  In fact, taking the proper algae regimen to bring my body back to an alkaline state would take 15 months!  Cancer and other things thrive in an acidic state but cannot in an alkaline state so getting your PH leveled is important, or so it was explained to me in this session.  I also learned that because of my acid level, my body showed that I was carrying around an extra 7 liters of water, which is the excess fluid around the fat cells.  Wow….Definitely want to research all that when I get home and learn more about it…when internet doesn't cost me money.  :)  Right now I have a free 100 minutes on the ship so I have been typing things out in notepad and then just connecting to the internet long enough to publish.  :)  

Cristian got to meet Phineas & Ferb today before heading up to the kid's club!

He absolutely does not want to leave the kid's club area when we want to come get him.  I tried to get him to come swimming, go see a movie, etc…and he wanted to stay there and play.  He has made some friends in the kid's club and just loves it.  Today they did make your own Flubber and an "Anyone Can Cook" class.  Lara and I had several hours to ourselves while he was having his own fun so we decided to go back to Royal Court for lunch and enjoy a quiet lunch that didn't involve us having to ask an 8 year old to sit still every 5 seconds.  I had a mango cold soup with mint and baked fish for lunch.  It was pretty tasty!  Lara had the same soup and a chicken salad.  We then headed out to the pool deck.  This ship has something called the "Aquaduck" which is a water roller coaster that goes across the top deck of the ship and around.  Lara and I were going to ride it.  Well, that didn't go as planned.  We stand in a long line and get half way up the stair cases and she chickens out!!  Ugh…her and that fear of heights she has!  She could see all the way down because there were spaces in between the stairs and I couldn't get her to keep climbing.  So…I rode by myself and it was so much fun!  Afterwards, I told her how most of it was enclosed and she would have been fine so she promised she would ride it tomorrow night with Cristian.  Hmmm….I will hold her to that!  

We hit up the adult only area which was just eh for me.  Most of the seating was not in the sun which kind of defeated the purpose of laying in a chair for me.  The pool is very small, not much room to do anything, and there is a small swim up bar which doesn't really impress someone who rarely drinks. :)  We hit the hot tub up for a bit and then decided to head back to the cabin, shower, and go get little man kicking and screaming.  Decided it would be a fun family event to go to the Buena Vista Theater and see the Disney Nature Chimpanzee movie.  It was a sweet movie…which Lara napped through.  LOL!  She kept falling asleep so I gave up trying to wake her up.  I should have taken a picture of that one.  Now, that would have been something to laugh about. :)

After the movie we grabbed a snack and then went to a broadway show - Aladdin the Musical which surprisingly was really good.  There were a few people in it that had really amazing voices.  Cristian LOVED the musical and we even caught some "Prince Ali" bucks that were thrown out to the audience and some shiny confetti streamers.  

Tonight was Formal Night on the ship which is Cristian's favorite night because that boy LOVES to dress up in a suit and tie.  We had a few formal pictures done as a family, Cristian by himself, and Lara and I together since we were all dressed up.  They had a couple different neat backgrounds so we hit each of them up and then headed for dinner at the Animator Palate!  This restaurant is just TOO COOL!!!  The inside looks like…well a palate with paintbrush columns, paint splatter ceiling marks with glimmering stars and the walls are covered with all kinds of big screens that change and feature "talk with Crush"…he is completely interactive and hops all over.  The details in the restaurant were just awesome.  I will have to go back and take some pictures when it isn't full of people!!  

Here are a few pictures we did take and one of them is with the Chef and our servers! 

For dinner tonight Lara and I finally ordered something different!  LOL!  I had butternut squash soup and baked black cod with sweet potato puree for dinner.  Lara had butternut squash soup and some kind of shrimp pasta dinner.  I had no sugar added ice cream for dessert and she ordered the mini trio which came with a lemon soufflé, almond cake, and a walnut cake of some kind.

Tonight we set our clocks back an hour which puts us back on Texas time!  Can't wait for tomorrow - we will be in Grand Cayman!!  The three of us are doing an excursion which takes us to Stingray City where we get to swim, touch, and feed the Stingrays and then 2 snorkel sites!  This will be Cristian's first excursion on a cruise.  We usually do not take him with us off the ship so will be an adventure for sure.  

I'm ready for a good night sleep.  Adios for now…

Cheers,

M E