Day 8, part II: Onboard Wrap-up

We started off our final night on the cruise by entering the Mickey 200, a race where teams fashion their vehicles out of the following supplies, plus 4 black wheels that are in Declan's hand.

The best part was that Shane and I had coincidentally bought Declan a car race jumpsuit as a souvenir when we went to Monaco, so he got to show up for the event looking like this:



Very intimidating for the other children.

 Armed with a small paring knife and a rudimentary understanding of physics, we fashioned an ungainly looking potato race car, which we dubbed "The Need for Spud".   There was a minor family dispute regarding which spoiler to use: the large carrot chunks advocated by Shane and myself, with a combined twenty years of post-secondary education between us, and the small potato sliver advocated by Declan, who hasn't even started kindergarten and doesn't know gravity from a whole in the ground.   The carrot spoiler won out, but there were tears.  Until we started tearing up the preliminary head-to-head sudden elimination heats, that is.

Ultimately, the Need for Spud was edged out in the semi-finals by a questionable photo-finish determination.  We did however win a prize for the best team name.  The prize? A keychain.  Then it was off to the Kids' Club for Declan as Shane and I had a 6pm reservation at Palo, which is the true fine-dining restaurant on board. It cost a small additional premium, $30 per person, but it was well worth it. It was commensurate in quality with a Michelin one-star I would say, and we enjoyed our meal there immensely.  After dinner, we went to pick up Declan and then proceeded to our regular 8.30 dinner seating.  Declan had eaten in the kids' club already, so none of us were hungry, but we couldn't bear to miss out on our last meal with our tablemates.  So we just had a glass of wine and chocolate milk, respectively, and had one last visit.  When it was time to say good-bye, Declan spontaneously ran over and gave Wendy the biggest hug, and planted one on her the likes of which I had never seen before.  It was his first spontaneous, self-initiated move, and I was glad to be there to witness it.

One last Mickey bar.

There was a giant cast party in the vestibule as everyone said their goodbyes.

Declan had the chance to thank Mickey for letting him on his boat.

Final towel origami, a spitting cobra.  A fine way to mark 7 days free of Norwalk contraction.

The next morning before we disembarked, Declan enjoyed his last meal onboard with a self-fashioned crazy straw.  Then he asked for dessert.  After breakfast.  So I knew it was time to get off the boat, because that is not good when a child starts to expect dessert after breakfast. So as reluctant as we were to leave, the party was over.