Blog Header - June 15, 2008

Today's blog header photo is of one of the 7 fantastic pools at the Disneyland Caribbean Beach Resort. I am normally up by 4:00 am and my body just woke me up at this time even while we were on vacation. So I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed out to get some coffee and ended up taking this photo well before the sun rose.

Almost exactly a year ago, our family went to Florida to visit my parents and then on to Disneyland where we spent a week at the Caribbean Beach Resort. Although we had been to Disneyland many times, it was our first time actually staying at one of their resorts. And it was amazing.

The Caribbean Beach Resort is themed in a tropical island/pirate theme with palm trees and tropical vegetation lining the paths, four beaches with playgrounds and hammocks, and seven swimming pools scattered throughout the expansive resort. The different areas of the resort are named for famous South Seas island cities and towns, with Port Royal being the central area housing a large restaurant complex and gift shop with a huge outdoor dining area that extended into the lake in the center of the resort.

Port Royal also boasts the amazing swimming pool pictured in this photo. The pool is styled after a South Seas castle, similar to the old sugar cane castles that dot the Caribbean landscape. It has cannons (that shoot water if you press a button on them) and a slide built into one of the towers. On the far end of the pool is a waterfall and a hot tub/spa built into the side of the pool. Our son loved it. He even wore his plastic pirate sword on the side of his bathing suit a couple times when we swam in this pool.

The resort also provided the opportunity to meet other people and we met some wonderful people while we were there. It's a whole new dimension to a Disneyland vacation. We all highly recommend it. In fact, we're planning to do it again near Christmastime this year.