Christmas on Disney Cruise Line

We at Magical Mouse Schoolhouse hope you and your families have enjoyed the holidays and were able to create many lasting memories. Today we’re wrapping up the season aboard Disney Cruise Line.

Visions of sugarplums are no longer dancing in my head, but I am still DREAMing of Christmas. I have often WONDERed what MAGIC abounds on a holiday journey with Disney Cruise Line. From the look of things, it’s pretty nautical and nice!

From Thanksgiving through the new year, all three ships are decked with winter wonderlandery. The Disney Dream alone is adorned with more than 300 custom designed pieces for its very first holiday season, including

1,016 feet of garland, longer than three football fields and nearly enough to stretch from bow to stern—the entire length of the ship
    66 holiday sprays of 15 inches to six feet in length
    29 wreaths from 24 inches to five feet in diameter
    41 Christmas trees ranging from two feet to 20 feet tall
    One 20-foot-tall tree in the atrium lobby weighing more than one ton, complete with 300 branches and more than 20,000 white LED lights

Special holiday events begin during each of the Thanksgiving cruises and continue into the new year. Some include
   King Triton’s Tree Lighting nightly in the atrium lobby; a young Guest helps Disney Characters light the three-deck-tall tree
 Family crafts such as decorating stockings, building gingerbread houses, making holiday cards and creating animation cells
    Holiday storytellers sharing tales of Christmas and Hanukkah, plus a story about the magical feeling of spending the holidays on a DCL ship.
    Traditional holiday feasts in the themed dining rooms
   Special holiday editions of DCL’s farewell on the final night of each cruise, featuring Disney characters and the ship’s crew in an engaging musical finale led by Mickey Mouse
   NFL football games are broadcast live on the ships’ outdoor, jumbo LED screens
   Cruises stopping at Disney’s Castaway Cay experience “snow flurries,” island Christmas trees, Christmas-attired Character meet-and-greets, carolers and holiday-themed activities for children

Those fortunate travelers spending Christmas Day aboard DCL met Santa Claus and his elves Christmas morning at the atrium lobby tree, where Santa handed out surprises for all the kids and shared his milk and cookies. Christmas services were held on Christmas Day with a midnight mass on Christmas Eve, and Hanukkah services are held each day, December 20-28.

To launch 2012, the Disney Magic departs on December 30 for an eight-night Eastern Caribbean itinerary, the Disney Wonder departs December 26 for seven nights in the Mexican Riviera, and the Disney Dream sails a five-night Bahamian cruise that departs on December 29. All three voyages include a New Year’s Eve party with music, sparkling wine in commemorative flutes and a midnight countdown.

*Facts and info via Disney Cruise News.

Today's Takeaway:
You may have noticed a few puns in the above article. Yes, they were intended! A pun is a play on words, or according to dictionary.com, “the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different meaning.”

Here are a few funny ones I found online. You may need to explain a several to your younger kids…or have them explain some to you.
1) The roundest knight at King Arthur’s Round Table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
2) I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
3) A rubber band pistol was confiscated in an algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.
4) No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
5) A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
6) Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
7) Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, “You stay here, I’ll go on a head.”
8) I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
9) The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
10) To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
11) A rule of grammar: double negatives are a no-no.
12) Math teachers have lots of problems.
13) Studying fungus is a way to mold young minds.
14) Decimals have a point.
15) Skipping school to bungee jump will get you suspended.

I feel like we need a ba-dum-ching of the cymbals!

Alrighty, first for today, go back and pick out all the puns I wrote in “Christmas on Disney Cruise Line.” Then come up with some of your own. I’m always up for a good Snicker (pun again!), so please humor me and leave your witty comments below.

SCHOOL SUBJECT: Language Arts
SKILL LEVEL: Middle Grades


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