Disney Cruise: It Turns Out We Are A Beach Family

This was the day of our cruise we spent in Aruba, and as you will see from the (way too) many pictures below, it was our favourite port. We headed straight to the beach and had an amazing time!

 

Before we even left the ship though, we ran into Captain Henry, who was the main captain of the Wonder. Captain Henry has been working for Disney Cruise Line since the beginning. He was very nice.

We got off the ship and immediately headed to the bus station, which was about a five minute walk away. We took a ten minute bus ride to Eagle Beach. The return trip cost $20US and was so easy. (This is just in case any of you decide to go to Aruba and want some helpful information!) Eagle Beach was beautiful! And the water was perfect for our family -- there was some wave action but it wasn't too intense.

 

 

The sand was gorgeous and the water was gentle enough that Dave and I felt comfortable swimming out on our own a bit and leaving the kids to play on the shore or in the shallow water. (We would NOT have done that in San Juan where the waves were fun to play in but way bigger and rougher.)

My plan was to make a Mickey head in the sand and then have water fill in the outline. The water kept covering it and ruining my plan. Ha! I kept moving further away from the water's edge and it didn't help. Maybe the tide was coming in???

A kind person took family pictures of us. The lying down in the water one was Rachel's idea. I thought it was a fun pose!

Sam doesn't love water or swimming so it was fun to see him enjoying himself. I just love how many pictures we have from this day of him laughing or smiling.

Rachel is our mermaid, so her enjoyment this day was less surprising :)

Dave and I got some "Instagram worthy" pictures...

...and some pictures which show why we're not social media influencers. HAHAHAHA!!!

I was having a lot of fun with the incredible background and the portrait setting on my camera. Rachel was an obliging model :)

 

Sam had his own ideas of how he wanted to pose. (Also, with his shaggy hair, hat, and sunglasses, he reminded me of the muppet, Floyd Pepper. Although as Sam pointed out, "Except I'm not orange and furry." True.)

Aruba, we LOVED you!!!

 

I don't remember what we did on the ship that afternoon, but in the evening we celebrated Mardi Gras at Tiana's Place. And we finally got to try the famous beignets. They were well worth the hype, especially served with a chocolate sauce. YUM!!!

That evening, Sam went to Edge, my mom and dad took Rachel to see Frozen 2, and Dave and I FINALLY got to see the new Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker. I'm sad that we didn't take the chance to see more movies on this cruise because some really fun ones were showing.

And that night we took advantage of ordering milk and cookies room service. However, by the time we picked up the kids, ordered, and it had arrived, we were chowing down on milk and cookies at 11:30 at night. Remember how I mentioned "cruise time" is its own special kind of time zone?!? Well, this was definitely another example of it :)

Every day on our cruise was so much fun, but this seriously might have been one of my absolute favourite days of the whole trip :)

*You can read about Day 8 here.