Sweet, Sweet (Disney) Fantasy Date Night

Last Thursday, Reggie and I went on a very special date night. We joined other media and celebrities at the christening of the Disney Fantasy, Disney’s newest cruise ship. It was one of our best date nights ever! Reggie is normally very blasé about the different things that I do for work. That is not the case when it comes to Disney events though. The night before our date, he mentioned that he was really looking forward to the christening. “There’s just something about Disney,” he noted. “They always do something special.” I agreed, but I must admit that I was even surprised at the level of thought and care that was put into planning the christening event. Of course, it was also really great to see several of my blogging friends.

The show portion of the night exceeded our expectations. Neil Patrick Harris served as the emcee and performed in the musical opening and closing numbers. While I previously still thought of him as Doogie Howser, I now have a greater appreciation of his humor and entertaining range. We were also treated to musical pieces from a few of the shows that will be performed on the Fantasy. “Friend Like Me”, “Dig a Little Deeper” and “Got No Strings” (a piece from a new show called “Wishes”) were the featured performances. As if that were not enough entertainment, Jerry Seinfeld did a stand-up comedy piece and Heather Headley sang several songs. I already knew that Heather Headley had an amazing voice. That was confirmed as she sang, “You’ll Be in My Heart” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. I must say that I finally “got” the appeal of Jerry Seinfeld. I liked his old “Seinfeld” show well enough, but it wasn’t anything special to me personally. For me, he truly shines as a stand-up comic. He had Reggie and I cracking up as he talked about coffee, energy drinks, Pop Tarts, Cream of Wheat and other people’s kids. Reggie and I kept looking at one another and I said (more than once!), “How cool is this?! We’re in the second row!!!”

After the performances, we took the offered champagne and went out to see Mariah Carey christen the new ship. I thought that it was really cute how she included her husband, Nick Cannon, in the occasion.

Then, it was time for dinner! I would show you all of the pictures that I took BUT I accidentally erased them while trying to figure out how to get large video files off of my husband’s Samsung Galaxy tab. Argh. Let’ just say that the food was plentiful and delicious. I want my own personal Disney Chef. There is one thing that I can show you from the dinner though…the pictures that we drew on our mats at dinner were turned into animated onscreen characters. (Why, yes I will be adding “Disney Animator” to my resume since they gave me a special seal for my drawing. Okay…maybe not!)

The partying on the ship continued after dinner, but we needed to go pick up the kids from the babysitter. We don’t normally both go out late on school nights, since it can be a bear to get the kids up the next morning. That is why we told them to brush their teeth and go to sleep at their normal bed time (7:30). Of course, they didn’t…rather they put their babysitter to sleep. At 11:30pm, I lovingly warned (okay threatened) the boys that I didn’t want to hear one, “I’m tired” the next morning when it was time to get ready for school. I’m happy to report tat the “sweet fantasy” continued into Friday, because they didn’t make one complaining peep the next day. It was an amazing ending to a very special date night.

In any event, I would love to take the kids on a Disney Fantasy cruise one day. Since their favorite memory from last year was cruising, I actually think that they would prefer the cruise even more than another trip to Disney World. We’ll have to start saving our pennies. In case your family is ready for a Disney cruise this year, another ship – the Disney Magic – will be sailing out of NYC starting in May!

Thanks to Disney for hosting Reggie and I on such a special date night. It was definitely “babysitter worthy”! 🙂

{Group photo picture courtesy of Colleen/ClassyMommy. She has some great pictures on her post recap, Simply Spectacular Disney Fantasy Christening Event.}