Recently, my husband and I went on our first cruise. Being Disney fans, it was, of course, a Disney cruise. Right there in the booklet of information we received were several tips for the cruise. Among them was one to bring a waterproof watch. Now, I’m an organized person and good at details, but somehow in the excitement, I totally forgot this one. It was not like me at all. I didn’t remember it until we were sailing away on the ship!

Here’s what happened. On the first full day, we took the excursion to the wonderful Atlantis Water Park. Boy, was it fun! We rode lots of water slides and their lazy river called The Current, which we found out was not very “lazy” in some sections. However, if there were clocks around, they were few and far between. We ended up eating lunch late because we were having so much fun that we lost track of time. Then we had to keep asking employees what time it was because we had to allow time to walk all the way back through the resort (which was no small hike) to catch our van which came every 15 minutes or so to take us back to the boat. You don’t want to miss the boat!

The next day a watch wasn’t quite as critical since we were on the ship. However, the activities we chose were again, water related. We rode the Aqua Duck several times! What a blast! Then we retrieved to the adult pool for some R & R. A cell phone or an ordinary watch would not have survived.

The third and last full day of our cruise was at Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay. Our activities included – you guessed it – WATER! First, we rode bikes. That was dry enough. Then we found a water slide that was actually out in the ocean. Just had to do that! Time got away from us again and we almost missed lunch hours. We found the barbecue place about 15 minutes before they stopped serving. That would have been a disaster. Trust me! You don’t want to miss the wonderful food, especially the ribs and the chocolate chip cookies!

Then we went snorkeling and were having so much fun that we had no idea how far out we had swam. We were still well within the controlled boundaries which were safe from predators, but once we decided to come back to shore, we had to encourage each other like Dory by saying, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming . . .” Once on the beach, we noticed that the whole area was clearing out. It was time to go back to the boat already! We didn’t even have time to use our raft rental. So, if you every go on a cruise, and I do recommend a Disney one, be sure to take a waterproof watch! You’ll be glad you did.