Castaway Cay...Disney's Private Island in the Bahamas...That is the "Flying Dutchman" from the Pirates of the Carribbean movie....have I mentioned that Sutherlyn loves that movie?! It is her favorite .....on the top of the list of her most favorite movies of all time! Go figure? Capt Jack Sparrow is her favorite pirate (as if she knows any other pirates?!) So you can imagine her surprise when he was there, waiting for her!

Onboard ship......

Sutherlyn and me just before dinner the 2nd night....

Sutherlyn and "Pirate" Minnie.....

Nobody does it like Disney!

Are we going on a Disney Cruise?! Yes......Yipeeeeeeee.........

The "sail-away" party on deck as we were leaving Port Canaveral.

Our Stateroom...we had an oceanview window...it is huge!

I don't know what it is about us....maybe we look "special" ~ I have no idea, but once again one of the Disney "cast members" walked up to us on the first night of the cruise, we were attending the "Golden Mickeys" ~ and he asked Sutherlyn, "How would you like to be part of the "special" show tonight? The 7 dwarfs are missing, we left them onshore in Port Canaveral, they missed the ship. We need some children to fill-in for them. How would you like to come up on stage and help us out by being a "dwarf" for our production tonight?" What is it with us? Seriously, it is always fun but we are always picked out of a huge crowd to take part in the "special" events (while down at Fort Wilderness a few years ago, we were picked out to go back and have "special" time with Chip and Dale....while at Disney that same year we were picked out of a large crowd of people standing in line for a ride to be given the "special" treatment...they gave us fast passes to all of the rides that day, the Disney Dream Pass, we didn't have to wait in line for anything the rest of the day and then this, on the cruise.....we were excited to say the least. So, the above picture is Sutherlyn as a "dwarf"....she is right in the middle with the purple hat on, right beside the black and white striped shirt kid.

Coming into port in Nassau.....Bahamas.

The "traffic" cop in Nassau. They don't have "traffic" lights, they have these!

More of everything.....

This is the restaurant in the Hotel....this is part of the downstairs that has been renovated by Joe...the current owner. Based on what he did down there, I can't wait to see the upstairs! He did a great job and was very true to the character of the hotel while adding sophisticated touches throughout. It is beautiful!




This is Clinton Anderson and one of his horses, Diez.....I had the camera on "action" so it was taking pictures one right after the other, in sequential frames, it caught this, the horse was licking and chewing (something all of you horse entheusiast know is a good thing) however, when I looked back at the pictures, based on the way the camera was working, it looks like he is sticking out his tongue! I thought this was funny...

Here is the picture of Clinton coming to the side of the arena to answer Sutherlyn's question. He came over to the side because he said that "he couldn't understand her accent and needed to come nearer to her to hear her better" - lol - He is from Australia ~ who do you think has an accent? She is on the right side of the picture, in the red jacket, just a row in front of the red blanket there.

This is the main stairwell in the Hotel....it was beautiful too....Don't like the carpet, hopefully Joe will pull that up too.

This is the view across the street ~ this is what you see when you are standing/sitting at the Hotel. It looks like a postcard to me. This is Wartrace.....it is a small town, a very small town!

The Hotel - from our Tennessee vacation in November.....for Stephanie (again!)

The front view of the hotel....

The Walking Horse Hotel - circa 1917 ~ This place was right up my alley! The last picture here is our room....the hallway was long and wide and the floor creaks when you walk on it!!! (Stephanie, I wish you'd been there, you would love it!)

Someone came in a number of years ago (the previous owners) and "updated" things (ugh), the red carpet is going as soon as the new owner begins his upstairs renovations...should be some time this month. He is going to send me new pics once he has completed some of it. My pictures here really do not do this place justice, it really was very cool! The halls are adorned with some pictures of the Grand Champion Tennessee Walking horses in the early 1900's. The first and most famous, Stolling Jim, is pictured below. He's also buried behind the hotel.

I'll post a few more of these later.....these are to hold Stephanie over for a bit!

This is a link to an article done in the paper about the hotel and its new owner...great story!

http://www.t-g.com/story/1232571.html

SURPRISE!

Well, Happy Birthday to Sutherlyn....I cannot believe she is 9 years old! It is hard to imagine that she is growing up so fast.

We decided it would be fun this year to break from a traditional Birthday party and surprise her with a Disney Cruise for her birthday....much better than cake and ice cream, don't you think?!

Anyway ~ I have a lot of pictures to post but for now I will start with this one~ this was the look on her face when she saw the Disney ship sitting at Port Canaveral on Thursday afternoon as we drove over the bridge to the port.......I'll post more all about the adventure and the days leading up to it later, for now, enjoy this.....til next time!

Here are a few more, when she looked out the window this is what she saw....the SHIP - quite a sight.....don't you think?! I have others that are far better than these, but this is the ship at port....at the dock waiting for us!