Israel - Pesach 2025. The Fifth Plague. Peanuts.
Monday morning we had our last Orient breakfast.
We'd said we'd meet by 9:30, but of course my mom wasn’t ready in time. Hallie made sure to tip the staff member who had brought her a nut-free dessert plate each night—so sweet and thoughtful of her. Then we packed up, left the hotel, and headed back to the apartment. My parents arrived a little later, and after a bit of settling in, we set off again.
We spent the rest of the day walking down Ben Yehuda and then Yaffo, eventually making our way to Mamilla. We shopped a bit, got Aroma and Roladin, and just enjoyed the walk. From there we walked down through the Artist Colony where we ran into a family from Madeleine’s class. Then we walked up through Mishkenot Sha’ananim, where Tzvi and I did our engagement photo shoot fifteen years ago. A little nostalgic detour. We stopped to take some photos and then stopped a guy walking by to take a family picture for us. As soon as he stopped he was like, “I know you.” It was someone I went to HAFTR and later NYU with.Jerusalem really is one big small town. After that we walked all the way back to the apartment. Shockingly, Hallie was a trooper through the whole walk. No complaints, no meltdowns. Truly a miracle.
Dinner that night was at Super Hamizrah, which is supposed to be a speakeasy-style restaurant. You enter through what looks like a tiny bodega, but it opens up into a trendy, buzzy dining space. Tzvi and my mom were really excited to go—this place had been on their list—except as soon as we sat down Tzvi looked at the menu and was like “wow this place has a lot of peanuts.” I was like, didn’t you look at the menu before you decided to come here? We ordered and they assured us that they would make sure there were no peanuts, although the kitchen “is not sterile for allergies,” which they say at every food establishment in Israel.
Tzvi started with a ceviche dish that he really liked, and we all shared this braised cabbage dish that was incredible. Hallie had salmon and chicken nuggets. Madeleine had some kind of teriyaki rice noodles and an avocado sushi roll which made her really happy (yes, this was a kitniyot restaurant). Really good food.
The cabbage really was incredible and Tzvi tried to pull the last bits of food off the dish, except what he thought was the last bit of cabbage was in fact not cabbage. As he bit into it, it crumbled in his mouth and didn’t taste like anything else that had been on that plate.
“I think that was a peanut.”
Not that he actually knows what a peanut tastes like, but he said throat started to feel tingly and weird, like the skin inside his entire mouth was peeling off. That was enough. He spent about a minute trying to decide what to do and then decided he was going to give himself an Epi Pen, so he took the pack of Epi Pens and headed off to the bathroom. My mother didn’t want him going alone so she sent my father after him, because as you know, I’m useless in situations like these. By the time they came back Tzvi had somehow given himself two Epi Pens. Have you ever heard of someone using two Epi Pens? No, well neither had any of us, or anyone on the internet, or any of the doctors we texted. Tzvi claims that he remembers Doctor Sicklick telling him to use two Epi Pens. We’re pretty sure the advice was to carry two Epi Pens in case the first doesn’t work, but not to actually use two in rapid succession. At this point Hallie was all upset and worried about Tzvi, my mother was upset at my father who let Tzvi use two Epi Pens, Madeleine was in her own little world, and I’m sure Hadar was just looking on in horror. Tzvi was feeling better in his mouth and throat and breathing but now he was worried about the double dose of Epi and frantically checking his heart rate every few seconds. Luckily it was staying pretty low.
Once you use an Epi Pen you’re supposed to go to a hospital because the Epi Pen isn’t a cure and the peanut is still in you and you may need further treatment. So off we went to Terem (because it’s not really a trip to Israel without a visit to urgent care, right?). We left my father and Hadar with the girls. They finished the food, including the beef we had ordered. I will say, everything I ate was delicious. Shame I had to miss dessert.
We got to the urgent care and Tzvi tried to explain to the man at the check-in desk that he was having an allergic reaction and used two Epi Pens. That got them to bring him straight back to a triage room. First a PA named Elon examined Tzvi. Where were you eating, he asked. When Tzvi told him the restaurant he said, “yeah, they have a lot of peanuts.”
Next an Arab Doctor named Qasem came in and told Tzvi he was getting an IV. By the way, does someone want to tell me about the apartheid in this country?
The doctor asked Tzvi if he had ever eaten a peanut before. Tzvi said no, and the doctor asked how he knew he was allergic then. Before Tzvi could give the obvious and simple answer – that he had been tested – my mother started speaking. In Hebrew she said something like:
״כשהוא תינוק, האמא שלו אכלה בותנים והוא שותה את החלב מן השדיים של אמא״
Which loosely translates to, “when he was a baby his mother ate peanuts and he drank the milk from the breasts of his mother.” Thanks.
They gave him IV steroids and told him to stay for observation for four hours. I have to say the care was quick and pretty good, although the place is kind of gross and the standards aren’t quite the same as America. Tzvi said he had to pee so they said go ahead and let him walk to the bathroom with his IV (which was around the corner and down the hall). When he got back there was blood in the line and no one seemed too bothered by that. Then they moved him into another room with other patients where he spent three hours listening to a family with what I can only imagine was whooping cough. My mother ended up looking for masks for them to wear. I stayed for a little while but ended up heading back to put the girls to bed. My mom stayed with him, which was incredibly kind of her—she handled everything: the waiting, the doctors, the prescriptions. Tzvi remarked that the most difficult part of the night was not the peanut or the Epi Pens but the fact that he’s now so indebted to my mother.
Eventually they left. The most incredible thing is that the whole trip – being seen by a nurse, a PA and a doctor, IV steroids, four hours of observation – all cost $600. I think in America an urgent care visit like that would’ve been in the thousands.
Tzvi came back and was still too wired to go to sleep so he sat up doing work and then finally decided to shower at midnight, except there was no hot water because we hadn’t turned on the dud shemesh (yes, even in nice apartments in Israel you need to turn the hot water heater on and off). Even once we turned it on it wasn’t heating up so he decided to wait a while and come back later. When he came back to shower an hour later it still wasn’t heating up so he started texting my mother and she said to let it run. Ten minutes later he realized he was turning the handle the wrong way. Thanks for keeping me up for that.
Another chaotic, memorable, very full day in the books.
Israel - Pesach 2025. The Fourth Plague. Rockets.
How did I sleep Thursday night? Definitely better, but I was tossing and turning all night. The girls got up a few times, but at like 5am we finally passed out.
Friday Morning
Friday, we had a reservation at 10:30 at the Grand Cafe, but next thing I knew, it was 10:30 and Hallie was waking me up. So... we weren’t making that reservation. We just got up, ate something in the apartment, and made it in time for our 12 o’clock hair reservation. Except—as I mentioned yesterday, when you make reservations for things in advance here, they don’t really hold. So we get to the hair place and they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know… sit, wait.” So we sat and waited.
The hair place is this little shop run by Miki and Sagi—I think Sagi is the woman, Miki is the man. And there are just people sitting on random chairs and couches in this tiny space. It’s pretty disgusting, but also, you can tell these people know everyone.
They took my mom first for her blowout. Then they took Hallie and were like, “Oh, her hair is very dry,” so they had to do a hair mask. Then they took me, and then Madeleine. But while Miki was doing my hair, he was like, “I can’t, I need to cut.” And I was just sitting there like, I don’t know… you’re speaking Hebrew at me… and somehow I let this random Israeli man cut my hair. Which I may regret a little. But it’s okay. I look like an Israeli woman now. We finally got out of there—it took like two hours. When Miki was blowing out Madeleine’s hair, it got too hot and she started crying. It was a whole thing. Then he showed me how her hair is very uneven and also needs to be cut, so cut he did. The entire situation was just… funny in that way that it’s not funny in the moment, but it’s funny when you tell the story later.
So we got our hair done, and by the time we finished, we met up with Mr. Tzvi. Then we basically just packed for a while. Tzvi had wanted to get to the hotel early. I think he thought he would arrive at the apt, we would welcome him with open arms, and be packed and ready to go to the hotel. In reality, we had a lot to organize since we were going to the Orient Hotel for a few days. Eventually, my dad drove us over in a couple of trips.
Of course, there were some issues checking in (because why not?), but it all worked out. The manager remembered me, and I was like yea, because I always have some issue. We got the rooms we requested (a “complex”), so that was good. This is the same room we’ve had in the past – it’s a corner where there are two rooms next to each other, but you can close the hallway door outside the two rooms, so they’re not like connecting rooms but they share a tiny private hallway.
When we walked in the lobby, there was this big beautiful dessert display—chocolate nut bark, truffles, dried fruit. Just gorgeous. We ate something at the dairy restaurant in the hotel lobby, which is kosher for Passover. Hallie got pizza (didn’t really like it), Madeleine got noodles (also didn’t like them). I had a Caesar salad, which I really liked. Tzvi had an eggplant soup that he actually really liked (have you ever heard of eggplant soup before?).
Then we got ready for Shabbat dinner. We were seated at a table near the entrance and right from the start there was typical drama about seating. Hallie and Madeleine both wanted to sit next to me. Tzvi didn’t want to sit on the booth. Hallie wanted to be in the dark seat (where there was less light. She likes romantic lighting). We finally figured it out and then Tzvi and my mother spent the whole meal complaining about the booth and saying we couldn’t have seder at this table. Dinner itself was really nice. It was a good buffet as usual - beef, lamb, chicken, lots of great salads, two kinds of soup – but nothing super exciting to report.
At one point during dinner my mother came back to the table and reported that there was an older Israeli woman in a nightgown wandering around the buffet and putting her hands into the salad bar. She said she could’ve been one of her patients, but no one else seemed to mind. That was the first sighting.
I think one thing we also noticed is that there are a lot more Americans at the Orient than there used to be. When we came a few years ago it was all Israelis and French, and only a couple of American families. Now it seems like the Five Towns has found out about it and taken over. We’ve seen a few people we know. We also saw a partner from Tzvi’s firm, who happened to be wearing the Fried Frank vest from the partner retreat that Tzvi didn’t get. That didn’t make Tzvi happy.
And then came the first experience of them rushing us out. We were sitting, eating—our meals always take a while—and suddenly the staff is like, “We need to clean up, we need to set up for breakfast.” Basically just kicking us out. It was weird.
We headed upstairs and went to bed. Tzvi passed out, of course. I took a bath. They have the best bathtub here, and we have a nice little terrace in our bathroom so you can look outside. It’s serene.
And that was Friday.
Shabbos Day
Shabbos day we woke up, and scrambled to get ready for breakfast. I think it ended at 11 and we got there around 10:30. It was the usual breakfast spread – salads, eggs, quiches, roasted vegetables, pesach pastries.
After breakfast, we went back to the room. The girls hung out in my parents’ room and Tzvi basically slept straight through until lunch at 1:30. Lunch was nice—another solid buffet. We saw the old lady wandering around again, still in the same pink nightshirt. After lunch Tzvi spoke to the maître de and gave very specific instructions about where he wanted to be seated – main room, no booth. We’ll see how that works out.
After lunch, we took a walk over to see our good friends Abby and Mordy, who live near my parents in Baka. I had never met Ronni’s kids before, so it was really sweet. Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the seder.
Finally it was seder time. First off, Tzvi was very pleased with the table we were given, which was right in the middle of the main seating area. No booth, real chairs. It was a nice table. Tzvi decorated the table with our little plastic squeaky frogs and put out everyone’s hagadahs. It was nice. There’s not much to say about the actual seder. Tzvi ordered an expensive bottle of wine that I thought tasted like the floor of a barn, but he really enjoyed it, so he was happy. We did our usual songs, but it’s always different when you’re in a dining room full of people and noise. Tzvi hid the afikomen behind the register at the front of the dining room, which took the girls some time to find. Like each of the previous meals there are a delicious meat buffet, and the old lady in the same (I guess unwashed?) blue nightshirt was wandering around. At this point Hallie is afraid to go to the bathroom alone because she says the lady is “haunting” her (I think she means stalking).
Of course, once again, they rushed us out. It was like 11 p.m. and the staff was already cleaning up around us, saying they needed to set up for breakfast. We were like, “It’s the seder! What are you doing??” It was honestly kind of ridiculous.
After that, I started getting a cold and, surprise surprise, did not sleep well. I think I’ve just accepted that I’m never sleeping on this trip. That’s just what’s happening now.
Sunday
Sunday morning we got up and went to breakfast. Hadar was going on a walking tour so she left early to go to breakfast first. When we got there later we stood on line and waited but Hallie went in to take a look at the dinning room. When she came back she said, “you’re not going to believe it. Hadar is sitting with the old lady.”
Apparently they had given Hadar her own table, then when she went to get food someone took her table and the waiters told her just to sit at another table, so she did, except then it turned out that was the old lady’s table. So she sat with the lady. And yes, she was still wearing the same blue nightshirt.
After breakfast we went to Gan Ha Pa’amon, a park across the street. They have two playgrounds, one that’s like a kid’s playground and ones that’s like a workout place but all of the kids play on it anyway, and we did that basically until lunch. Then we ate lunch. All we do is eat here. It’s one meal to the next. That’s what you got to do. Although at lunch they didn’t really rush us because they didn’t have to set up for another meal. I don’t know if anyone was doing a second seder. We certainly weren’t.
After lunch we went swimming. The hotel has a great indoor pool as I’ve mentioned before so Hadar and the girls and Tzvi and I swam. After a while Hadar and my mom took the kids upstairs and Tzvi and I and my dad stayed behind the relax and read.
I was there, minding my own business, reading the new Hunger Games book, and then all of a sudden, I don’t even hear anything, I just see people shuffling around and Tzvi is like ”let’s go.” I was like, “where?”
“I think there’s a siren.”
So we get up and head into the bomb shelter which is like some kids’ camp room, which is actually very cute. It was definitely nerve-wracking not to be with the girls and not know what was happening but we all packed in there nobody seemed too nervous. I don’t think they even actually closed the door to the room. We just waited there for like ten minutes until we got the all clear. While I was there I said hello to Chef Bae, an influencer who’s a private celebrity chef. Once we got upstairs we heard that Madeleine was great but Hallie cried. I guess that’s to be expected. Overall we survived and it was a good first siren experience. Thank you to the Houthis for the opportunity.
After that Sunday ended in kind of a blur. After yuntev ended Tzvi got right on his computer and basically disappeared into work for the next several hours. There was a big protest that went through Jerusalem and went by our hotel. I think it’s part of a weekly protest thing. It took us, no joke, an hour and a half to figure out that maybe we should just order room service because, oh right, we were starving.
Room service ended up being surprisingly decent. It came from both the dairy and meat restaurants—some salmon, a fake bread situation, a couple of salads. Nothing incredible, but it hit the spot. Then came sleep... or lack thereof. It was another rough night for me, not much else to say.
Israel - Pesach 2025. The Third Plague. Plastic Wrapped Food.
Tzvi will be writing this one, but you can already tell from the title that his week must have been soooo difficult if the only “plague” he could come up with was that his food was wrapped in a lot of plastic.
As Stephanie said, my story started on Monday. Now that I'm a partner, I had to attend new partner orientation, which was split between Monday and Thursday, and then the global partner summit — a dinner on Monday night and a full day of events on Tuesday.
I won’t go into too much detail, but the short version is that I had to be out of the house by 7:30 Monday morning, barely got to see the kids, and spent the entire day at our Midtown office in session after session, learning about… honestly, I don’t even remember anymore. That night, there was a dinner at The Peak at Hudson Yards — beautiful venue, but the food was terrible. They got me kosher food from Le Marais, but it was basically like chewing a steak-shaped rock. Still, it was a nice event overall. They were handing out these Fried Frank-branded vests at the end, but they’d run out of men’s sizes other than XL (which I’m not quite up to), so I didn’t get one. Hopefully, I’ll get one eventually. I got home sometime after 11, long after the kids were asleep.
Tuesday morning was the same drill — out the door by 7:30, barely a goodbye, and back to Midtown for another full day of sessions about… again, who knows what. Lunch was fifteen minutes of unwrapping plastic and five minutes of eating overdone salmon. Then there was a cocktail party before departing for dinner, where there was another cocktail party. This time it was a different restaurant, but same story: another meteorite that looked like something Jeff Bezos’ girlfriend brought back from “space”. I got home late again but this time the house was dark and empty. I was very lonely.
Wednesday was a normal workday, finally. Then Thursday rolled around, and it was back to Midtown for the final bit of orientation from 10 to noon. After that, I took a train home, packed up, and got ready for my 5:30pm flight. My car picked me up around 2 p.m. Quick ride to the airport, smooth check-in at the business class counter. They offered me a choice between a voucher for the Virgin lounge or a $60 duty-free credit for use onboard. Since I had access to other lounges, I took the credit.
Security was quick, thanks to the business class line, and then I made my way to the Amex Centurion Lounge. I thought about checking out the Chase Sapphire Lounge, but the 45-minute wait killed that idea. The Amex Lounge was great. The food looked questionable, but I got myself a solid iced coffee. They had this little speakeasy section called the 1850 Club where I found a quiet table, ordered a Southside (a gin cocktail), and settled in to do some work. Honestly, it was kind of peaceful.
Fifteen minutes before boarding, I left the lounge and headed to the gate. Business class had its own line, and not before long we were boarding. There’s nothing quite like turning left when you get on the plane. I found my seat — 4A, which is both a window and an aisle seat — and it was beautiful. Tons of space, lay-flat seat, everything you could want. A flight attendant came by and offered me a mimosa. No complaints there.
We had a bit of a wait on the runway, but I didn’t mind. I was comfortable. Eventually we took off. They brought around menus and a wine list. Everything was already switched over for Pesach, which was unfortunate. I started with a red wine from Razi’el winery, a nice blend of Syrah and Carignan. All of the food on El Al is now curated by Asaf Granit, who is a celebrity chef in Israel and actually has restaurants around the world — including one in St. Barths that we ate at last summer. The food was fine. For the appetizer I had tuna tataki with a raisin and celery salad. For the main I chose the short rib with mashed potatoes (over the salmon or chicken options), and for dessert there was chocolate mousse. Presentation was definitely a step up from Economy, but I wouldn’t say it was life-changing.
After dinner, I did some work, then converted my seat into a bed — comforter, pillow, the whole setup. I tried putting on the slippers they gave me but they were too small. I dozed on and off, didn’t get a full night’s sleep, but it certainly felt better than what I typically get in the back of the plane. When I woke up, I did some more work and watched TV — I tearfully sipped more fine and finished the Dodgers World Series documentary on Apple TV+.
Eventually it was time for breakfast, though my seat wouldn’t switch back from bed mode, so they had to reset the whole system. Breakfast was decent again (actually tasty lox, spinach frittata with ratatouille), and though I usually avoid coffee on planes, they offered cappuccino, and I couldn’t resist seeing what an airplane cappuccino tastes like. I was pleasantly surprised — not the worst I’ve had.
Before I knew it, we were landing. Honestly, the flight to Israel is just too short. Once we landed, I headed to passport control. There were long lines — apparently Friday morning at 10 a.m. is prime time for French travelers coming in before yuntif. While I was waiting, a man started walking around, glancing at passports and handing out blue tickets. He looked at mine, handed me one, and just said “go.” No idea what that was about, but I went with it.
By the time I got to baggage claim, my bag was already out — perks of flying business. I grabbed it, made a quick stop at Aroma for an ice café slushy, and met my driver, Yoram. We got in the car and drove straight to Jerusalem.
Great flight.
Israel - Pesach 2025. The Second Plague. Insomnia.
Okay, so that night was a mess.
We were exhausted but wired. I think Madeleine fell asleep at 10:45, and she was amazing. Hallie did not. I tried to put her to bed at like 11:15, but she didn’t fall asleep until around 1:30. I just had to keep going back and forth and I kept falling asleep for 10 minutes and she’d wake me up again—it was horrible. Just horrible. It was like sleep torture they use on terrorists. I wanted to give up the information, I just didn’t know what it was.
Then she was up at 2:30, 3:30, and 4:30. And then Madeleine got up at 4:30 too. So we were all up from 4:30 to 5:30. Then, thankfully, they both went back to sleep, and I did too.
Except—of course—there was an alarm clock in my bedroom set for 7 a.m. So that woke me up. I turned it off, only to find another alarm clock set for 7:09. I turned that one off too and just thanked God it didn’t wake up the girls.
Hallie ended up getting up around 8, and Madeleine slept until close to 10. Either way, we already knew today was going to be a lazy day. We had breakfast at around 10:30 in my parents' apartment. They made us a very nice spread with berries, cereal, and yogurts.
We were moving at a snail's pace, which I think is just my mother’s normal speed, but it worked for us. I think it was around 1 p.m. when we finally left the apartment and headed to the Hadar Mall—their mall here. We went to Greg for lunch, which was really good. My mom and I shared a salmon pad Thai with peanuts (yay peanuts—because Tzvi isn’t here!), and an herby quinoa-apple salad. It did say it had cucumber, but it was listed among a bunch of ingredients, and the whole thing turned out to be like 90% cucumber. So, that didn’t really work for me. I did get a nice slushy iced café, though, and that was delicious. Hallie had pizza, my dad had a sweet potato salad—basically a salad with a ton of fried sweet potatoes on top, which were delicious.
We did some shopping—the girls got new shoes and some toys (they got Barbies), and they picked out some candy. I also went to a makeup store – Il Makiage - which I always see advertised on Instagram. It’s hard to order online without trying stuff, but I had bought a mascara there the last time I was in Israel and really liked it. The woman there was so nice—she did a full face of makeup on me and showed me what I was doing wrong and how to use different products. After the experience I had at Sephora the past couple of weeks—especially during the sale—this was such a contrast. At Sephora, everyone’s busy, no one wants to help you, and you end up on your own. But this woman? So helpful. She helped me and my mom, and we ended up buying a whole bunch of stuff—and we got a bunch of stuff for free too. It was one of those deals: buy four regular products and get three extras. But somehow we got even more than that. I’m not really sure how, but things worked out well for us. And don’t worry, there is a big sign saying that all the makeup is kosher for Pesach—so we’re good to go!
We kept walking around the mall—somehow we were there for over four hours—then headed back to the apartment, chilled a bit, and went back out for dinner.
Dinner was at this tiny restaurant that felt like an American diner, but kind of wasn’t. Like, they had pizza (which you don’t find in diners) but no veggie burgers. We got there and didn’t have our reservation, even though my mom said she made it a week ago, but they managed to squeeze us in even though the place was tiny. I got a salad with tuna. We also had pizza, a milkshake, and garlic knots. Oh, and the pancakes? Those were probably the best thing there, actually.
We came back and did bedikat chametz, then watched some YouTube clips from The Prince of Egypt, because you can’t stream it here on any platform, and I didn’t want to pay for it.
Now we’re trying to go to bed, so… hopefully tonight isn’t like last night. I guess we’ll see.
Israel - Pesach 2025. The First Plague. Loneliness.
And now we tell the story of Passover. Not the story of Passover, but the story of the Kaplan family Passover. It was a great trip, it really was. But like every journey, there were ups and downs, plagues and redemptions. And now, the ten plagues of the Kaplan family Pesach trip to Israel:
Loneliness
Insomnia
Shrink Wrapped Food
Rockets
Peanuts
Rhinovirus
House Music
Cramping
Bacterial Infection
Stomach Virus
In reality, the journey started weeks ago when we booked our Israel flights. With Pesach starting Saturday night, we would need to get to Israel by Thursday, and then since it was much cheaper to go a couple of days earlier, we decided to fly Tuesday night.
Then Tzvi made partner—yay! It was great news, except we found out that annual partner summit and the new partner orientation would be taking place the week before Pesach, Monday through Thursday. It really wouldn't look good from him to miss that, so he decided to switch his flight and take the Thursday night flight leaving at 5:30pm and getting in Friday morning. Unfortunately for Tzvi, the only seat left on the Thursday 5:30 p.m. flight was a business class seat. So, poor Tzvi will be flying in business by himself.
As you can imagine, the days before the trip were chaotic. Tzvi had his partner ‘retreat’, so he wasn’t even home to help out. The packing was crazy, we had a flood in the basement, and Madeleine was sick. I’ve blocked it out, but it was just an insane couple of days.
Okay, let’s get to the day of the flight—Tuesday morning. Tzvi went off to work, we said our goodbyes, the kids went to school, and I did last-minute errands and packing. It always feels like there’s more to do when you’re not leaving for the airport until nine o’clock at night. But everything was fine. I got everything packed, and our car arrived at 9:00pm. I felt like—even though I was so tense and stressed about the whole situation—actually getting out wasn’t stressful for some reason. I was texting Tzvi, asking him, like, “What am I forgetting to stress about?”
Anyway, we get in the car, and Hadar starts imitating what Tzvi would be like if he were with us (loyal readers will know he doesn’t travel well). Then she did me and was more calm. It was like: “If we forget something, we’ll just buy it.” Which is exactly when it occurred to me that I forgot Hallie’s headphones in her room. They were on her knapsack, but Hallie brought her knapsack down—not me. So, I didn’t go in and do a last check. But you know what? I just said, “Okay, we’ll buy at the airport for twice the price.” So it was fine. We were calm.
We got to the airport and unloaded. I immediately got a porter and paid him a whole bunch of money to take our luggage, like, 30 feet. Then we started the check-in process. We had our little security briefing, then we had to do the luggage tags, and then go weigh the luggage and drop it off—so it’s like three different stops, which is particularly annoying. But the porter actually took all of our bags and put them on the scale for us. Hadar’s bags were totally overweight—but they let them through somehow. And I mean really overweight, not just a pound or two. Like five pounds. Then I asked, “Where’s the precheck line?” I knew it was all the way down, but the woman saw that Hadar didn’t have precheck, so she gave it to her. We thought, “Great, we all have precheck!” Except… when we got to security, they told us precheck was closed. A woman had pity on us—saw that we had kids—and said, “Go to the business line. Tell them I sent you.” When we got to the business line, they were like, “No, there’s a family/stroller line.” And I did not want to get on that line. I don’t remember where we were going once before, but we’d gotten on that line and it was so long. So I said, “No—they told us to go to the business line.” We got on the business line, and it still took us like 20 minutes to get through, but it was definitely shorter than the regular line. Security was a mess, as always in this terminal. Then we headed toward the gate.
From there, we did our regular shopping. I found headphones for Hallie—for $50. Then we used the bathroom, and it was already time to board. We heard them calling our name: “Kaplan, come to the counter.” But at the same time, they were calling people with children and strollers to board. There was a line for the counter, and I was like, “Screw this, I’m not waiting.” If there’s a problem with boarding, they’ll figure it out. We go to scan our tickets, and they’re like, “Oh, you can’t board. Wait over here.” So we waited. Then this El Al woman comes over and says, “Can you describe your luggage?” I told her, and she showed me a picture and asked, “Is this it?” I said yes, and she said, “Okay, you’re good to go.” So weird. If anyone knows why that is let me know!
Hadar wasn’t with us at that point because she had to pee. So I was carrying all the bags—it was so crazy—but kind of funny. I was hot and overwhelmed, but not really stressed. I was like, “Whatever, we’ll get on the plane. We’re holding a bunch of bags. It’s fine.”
We got on the plane and—lo and behold—there was a lovely little baby, probably 8 or 9 months old, right in front of us. Hallie was like, “Ugh, no, this is horrible.”
I was like, “Don’t worry, the baby’s not going to cry that much. I mean, yeah, it’ll cry a little, but not that much.”
Famous last words.
We got ready to go. El Al, being who they are, pushes back while people are still standing. Love that about them.
The flight time was going to be 9 hours and 30 minutes. They brought dinner—Madeleine ate because she got chicken nuggets with rice and corn. Hallie didn’t want any. But for breakfast? Hallie loved it. She was like, “This is the best bagel and cream cheese.” And I was like, “That’s a frozen bagel and Philadelphia cream cheese.” Glad she enjoyed.
The baby cried for at least the first hour and a half—like, full-on screaming. It was in its car seat, and every time the mom took it out, it would stop crying. But once it was back in, it just cried. Eventually, it fell asleep. Then, over the next few hours, it would let out random screams and go back to sleep. I was so nervous it would wake the girls. They did sleep a bit—actually several hours on me—which was super uncomfortable, but I was thankful they slept. By the end of the flight, the baby started crying again (of course, back in the car seat). But overall, it was a pretty good flight.
We landed—and when you land, you have to wait forever for the stroller. They messed up and brought the strollers from a different flight first, so it took even longer. Then, we had to scan our passports at these machines to get a little visa slip—but it didn’t work. So we had to find a woman to do it manually. We waited, we got the visa. Then, we’re walking down the ramp, and I see a huge line labeled “Foreign Passports.” Another one says “Israeli Passports.” So I get in the foreign passport line because it doesn’t say anything else. It’s the longest line I’ve ever seen here. Eventually, someone says, “Hey, families with kids and strollers, come to this line.” So we switch to a shorter line. We get up to the guy, and he’s like, “Oh, you have green visas? You didn’t need to wait in this line.” I was like, “Why did no one tell us that?”
Also worth mentioning: they didn’t scan our passports at the biometric machines because there was some issue with the name on the visa. No idea what that was, but I need to figure it out for next time.
At that point, we’d already split off from Hadar because she was going home and didn’t want to miss her train. If she missed it, she’d have to wait an hour. So I got the luggage, and it was just me and the two girls. I had Hallie pushing the stroller with all our knapsacks and bags, Madeleine pushing my carry-on, and I was pushing three large suitcases—hugging them together so they’d move. It was probably a hilarious sight.
Why didn’t I get a luggage cart you may ask? I didn’t get a cart because I saw our luggage right away and grabbed it. I didn’t want to leave one of the girls alone to get a cart. And if we were all going to go get the cart together, we may as well have just gone to the exit—I knew the driver was waiting right outside. So I schlepped the luggage and met the driver. Dropped all the stuff with him, then took the girls to pee. I was like, “Great, now I’ll get a nice ice café from Aroma.” Got there—and they were out of slushy! So I got an iced coffee. Disappointing.
Anyway, we got in the car, did the drive to Jerusalem, and finally arrived at the apartment—woohoo! For those that don’t know, my parents have two apartments next door to each other (in the same building) in the Baka neighborhood of Jerusalem. We were staying in the second one—a two-bedroom. It’s very nice, except the master bedroom has a tiny bathroom with the worst Israeli shower. I’ve complained about this in many blogs before – for some reason Israelis build showers without a shower pan so the water comes right out of the shower and goes everywhere. It makes no sense.
Anyway, When we got in, they had dinner waiting. I had shawarma. The girls had hamburgers. I unpacked and we just hung out.Good day.
Not looking forward to the night.
Winter Break 2025. Part 7. Aren't You Nick?
And now for the thrilling conclusion…
Friday
Friday I woke up and saw that my mom had texted me at 2am. Apparently their toilet had started leaking from the bottom and their bathroom was all flooded. They had someone come fix it, but while they waited they had to go to the main areas to use the bathrooms. At 2am. The guy who fixed it says the valve was broken, which is not unusual on older ships like this one. All was well.
Usually we feel like we’re being rushed off a cruise ship, but we kind of felt the opposite here. We got up, had breakfast at 8:15 in the dining room (originally they told us to come at 7am – we said no and the head waiter fit us in at 8:15 instead). This was great and it was nice to have a last meal with our servers, except we didn’t realize our driver was coming at 9 and not 9:15. So all of a sudden he’s texting us that he’s coming and when we said we’d be there at 9:15, he said we need to be down by 9am or he’s leaving because he has another pickup. So that was stressful. It snapped Tzvi’s no-stress vacation mode and jumped his stress level from the usual two or three he has from dealing with the kids to a five. We had a quick breakfast and I’ll tell you, we made it to the car by 9:17, which is 17 minutes after we were apparently scheduled, but only 2 minutes after we told him we’d get to him.
We made the hour-long drive and pulled up at The Conrad at the Evermore Resort. The Evermore is a new resort (only a year old). It’s not on Disney property but it’s right next door. The resort is huge and most of it is vacation homes or apartments. The Conrad is the one true hotel on the property (Conrad is Hilton’s highest-end brand). We booked three rooms (two connecting and one additional for my parents) with a combination of cash and Tzvi’s Hilton free night reward and points. Because Tzvi is a Hilton diamond member, he got an email a few days prior saying that one of his rooms had been upgraded. When he called, they said they were only able to upgrade the single room, but that they could probably upgrade the connecting rooms when we checked in.
It was early when we arrived, so our rooms were not ready, but this was when Tzvi got the news that they would not be able to upgrade the connecting rooms. This meant we would have rooms without balconies overlooking the front of the hotel, while my parents would have a balcony room overlooking the resort and with a view of EPCOT fireworks. This brought Tzvi’s stress level from five to seven.
We decided to leave the bags and head to Disney Springs! We ordered an Uber, waited nine minutes for a Honda Odyssey. We were seven people, so it took a couple of minutes to get all of us buckled in. We were about to pull away when the driver asked Tzvi which terminal he was going to. Then he asked Tzvi, “Aren’t you Nick?” Turns out we had gotten into the wrong Honda Odyssey! We looked ahead of us and there was a second Honda Odyssey sitting there. We all piled out and tried to go to our actual Uber, but he pulled away just as we were walking up to it, so we had to order another.
We got dropped off on the West Side, which is not near the Disney Stores but is near the M and M store. That was fun. My mother bought a blanket and then proceeded to walk around with it draped over her, kind of like a homeless person. We kept walking and Tzvi saw the Summer House, a relatively new restaurant. That was when he finally woke up to our plans. He decided he loved the menu of this place and was like “why don’t we eat lunch here.” Well, we had lunch reservation at The Rainforest Café, a fan (read: Stephanie) favorite, and Hallie was also very excited for it. I was like, are we cancelling lunch? Like what’s happening here? Then Tzvi got all upset in one of his moods because all of a sudden, after 6 months of plans, he remembered he doesn’t like the Rainforest Café and doesn’t like when the chef has to come out to discuss his allergy. It’s not like I asked him over and over if there is any other place he wants to eat at over the course of planning. So that was super fun for all of us to deal with.
So we get to the Rainforest Café and Tzvi’s like, “well, we have to be in the Elephant room.” So, I ask for it and they say no problem. Then they put us on a line to wait for our table but the kids had to go to the bathroom so we left Tzvi and my parents waiting. Then they said the table was ready and walked him over to a table by the bar, not even near any of the animals, and Tzvi was not having it. They told him to wait again and said they’d get a different table but that they couldn’t seat him until his whole party was there. [Tzvi: It was absurd. Stress level up to nine.] Anyway, I came back and all of a sudden we were sat at a beautiful table by a large Elephant. Our server was lovely, and the chef who came over was lovely. We did have to wait for our food for a solid 45 minutes which was ridiculous, but everyone did great and the girls had a great time.
After lunch we walked around more and did the basic Disney Springs shopping. We went to the Lego store where the girls made personalized Lego people, except Madeleine named hers Rosie. I don’t know why. I think Tzvi almost had a full scale meltdown waiting for us in Zara. I stopped tracking his stress level.
We got back to the Evermore maybe 20 minutes before Shabbos started, got our rooms, and got ready for dinner. Our room is beautiful, spacious and modern, but Tzvi was still salty about the upgrade.
Dinner tonight was at the Italian place in the Conrad, Sophia’s Trattoria. We sat down, ordered, but twice during the meal I took the girls to go watch the fireworks because you could see both the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT fireworks from the hotel. That was fun. The food was good – we shared everything, really good pizzas, pastas and some appetizers. Then we went back to the room and got the kids to bed.
Saturday
We got up slowly Saturday morning, got coffee in the lobby, hung out, and walked around the hotel. We pretty much didn’t do anything until we got brunch at noon, again at Sophia’s Trattoria. The woman that seated us was wearing three Hebrew necklaces. Our server was from Jersey, now lives here and commutes an hour from wherever he lives. That seems excessive. We had a great table and a lot of food. The fruit platter was gorgeous and delicious.
Tzvi and I had a massage at the spa at 2. It was a good massage, and then we spent an hour just hanging out at the hot tub in the spa. We met two guys, both who live in Florida. One ended up being a Syrian Jew from Brooklyn, no surprise. This is where you really feel the difference between Disney and non-Disney properties. The conversation at the hot tub centered around how expensive Disney was, and then Mr. Syrian Jew was vaping. You’d NEVER see that on Disney property.
We packed, Shabbos ended, and we Ubered over to Disney Springs for our final evening of shopping! We didn’t have dinner plans, so we hit a bunch of places. The kids had gigantic pizza slices at Pizza Ponte and we shared a tuna sandwich from Pepe, the Jose Andres quick service spot (the sandwich was good despite not liking Israel - Jose Andres (I don’t think the sandwich had an opinion about Israel)).
I got a fresh diet Coke from the Coke store, hit Goofy’s Candy Co. for my caramel apple, had our ice cream Sundae’s at Ghirardelli, and then did our final late night shopping at World of Disney. It was great.
We didn’t leave until like 11:30. I think everyone was pretty spent. Tzvi was complaining that he didn’t feel well and just wanted to make tea at the hotel and get into bed. At one point we were trying to pay using the Disney mobile checkout app when Tzvi caught my mother scanning a QR code on a shelf.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“I’m trying to check out.”
“No, you’re signing up for a Disney visa credit card.”
Time for bed.
Sunday
We were up early Sunday morning and had room service breakfast, then headed down to meet our driver, who, you guessed it, was our same driver who took us from the ship to the hotel. He was already upset because he had pulled into the wrong entrance to the hotel. He doesn’t seem like a happy man. Anyway we made it to the airport, checked in, of course saw people we knew on the flight, and headed home! Tzvi was complaining again about not feeling well. He couldn’t even walk around the Disney store in the airport and just got himself a big tea at Starbucks and sat alone drinking it.. The whole trip I was thinking in my head how great it was that no one was sick. We made it through the entire trip healthy and everyone had a great time. Well, Tzvi made it through the flight, but by Sunday night he had fever, and by Monday we knew it was the flu. So, perfect timing!
Great trip.
Winter Break 2025. Part 6. A Pirate's Life for Me.
We were the last ones off the ship yesterday, so maybe we’d move a little quicker today, right? Wrong.
Tzvi was antsy to get off the ship earlier today, but he had a 9am call so it’s not like we could rush. We got up this morning, slowly got dressed, and made our way to the buffet. Ever since the FDA banned red dye this week, the kids have been having their froot loops and saying “don’t eat the reds!” It’s funny.
Today is Lookout Cay, which I think is a section of an island that Disney owns. It opened recently. Well, there is about a half a mile walk from the ship to the dock. There is a tram, but they will only take you if you are disabled and pre-reserve them. We didn’t know that. I tried to say that my mother had mobility issues (her issue is that she doesn’t want to walk), but that didn’t fly. Anyway, we made the shlep, and THEN got on a tram and that took us about another mile to the Disney beach area.
Once again we were probably the last ones but we did find a quiet area with more than enough chairs. The water was cold, but I actually went in with the girls. Madeleine peed in the ocean for the first time, which she was excited about. I will note that Tzvi can’t pee in the ocean but goes to the bathroom at the beach without shoes on. [Tzvi: To be clear, she’s referring to the public restrooms at the beach. I don’t just like, pee on the beach. Also, I only do this at fairly high end places.] Similar lunch today, but they had a tofu curry as well. It’s just so well run. There were nice shaded seating areas with big fans so we weren’t super hot while eating. Genius! It’s so pleasant.
We got back on the ship around 4. We gave the girls to Hadar, who had opted not to get off today, and then hot tubbed again, where we saw the same people as yesterday. There was one guy who was talking about how cruises used to be much more formal, the good old days. Another guy was talking about a 62 day cruise he took. It’s fun listening to stories.
Tonight is Pirate night! On every Disney Cruise there is a pirate night. They give you bandanas in your stateroom, but some people really go all out and get dressed up. Tonight the kids went to the dining room for dinner, and me, Tzvi and my parents went to Remy, one of the two specialty restaurants on the ship. We sent the kids of with Hadar, watched an incredible sunset from the balcony, visited the kids at dinner, and then went to dinner.
Remy is based off of Ratatouille, and is a 5 course tasting menu, but inexplicably they don’t actually serve ratatouille. [Tzvi: That has to be my biggest complaint of this cruise.] Even without that, it was all excellent and perfectly executed. Amouse bouche. Bread, multiple butters, tomato course, gnocchi course, fish course, vegetable tart, chocolate dessert, cheese course, bon bons and a peanut butter and jelly tart, with lollipops and a rose to go. Everything was delicious, and even the dishes I didn’t really like I could appreciate were well done. Also, the service was impeccable. Every time someone went to the bathroom a waiter escorted them out of the restaurant, and then whenever you came back the host led you back to your table. I think Tzvi was most excited about the cheese course – they brought over a cart with a dozen different cheeses and told the story of each one. The experience was out of this world and the meal was over 3 hours.
We met up with the kids for the 10:15 Pirate Party outside. There was a cute show where Captain Jack swings from the top of the smokestack down to the stage, and then they had fireworks. Disney is the only cruise line that is authorized to have fireworks at sea and they were so fun. Really well done.
We did some more shopping but Hallie was so tired she was almost crying.
Good Day.
Thursday morning, our last full day on the ship, a sea day.
We got up and decided that because it was the last day, we would try to do the dining room because it closed at 10 instead of 9:30. I think we got there 9:45. We saw our servers Christopher and Raphael, and I’ll say it again, it’s so nice having servers that know you. Now, although we were at the dining room with a very nice menu, Christopher had told us that there were Mickey Churro Waffles at the buffet today. The buffet was closing at 10:45, so I ran up and grabbed a few waffles to bring back to the dining room. They taste exactly how you’d expect. Delicious, but gross. I wish they had them earlier in the cruise because by the last day you’re so full.
After breakfast I wanted to go to the gym and the kids and tzvi wanted to go to the pool. Tzvi said that he works so hard, and I no longer am employed, so really I should take this time to be with the family so we all could have a good time together. He won that one. So, we all went to the pool. It was cool, but when the sun came out it was nice. They were playing Disney movies at the pool. Also, I don’t think I mentioned that every hour they close the pool for 10 minutes just to “see if anything’s in there.” I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.
I think on this ship the kids are a lot younger than I’ve seen on other cruises, which I guess makes sense, but all week I’ve been wondering who all of these kids are who can leave two weeks after they’ve just been off for Christmas. There was some 10-11-12 year olds, but it mostly skewed Madeleine’s age. And trust me, these kids weren’t on yeshiva break.
We just chilled the rest of the day. The girls got their hair braided. It was really nice, they have people who do the braiding on the ship so you don’t have to deal with random people and overcharging. Lunch was good. They had sushi. There wasn’t much variety, but Madeleine was happy about the vegetable rolls. I did get in a quick workout, we packed, and got ready for our last dinner.
Tonight was once again at the Enchanted Garden. We said goodbye to our servers and took some pictures. It was a nice last dinner, but they didn’t do a big goodbye walking around waving napkins.
All of the Disney characters were out tonight. There was a final show called Believe about a father who doesn’t believe in magic, so the genie from Aladdin takes him through different Disney movies to show him magic exists. It was really cute and probably the first and last time I’ll see The Bare Necessities performed on stage (an underrated classic). [Tzvi: I think the message of the show was basically keep your kids believing in fairy tales for as long as possible, because the real world isn’t so great. In other words, keep paying to take your family to Disney. I can actually get on board with that. Say what you want about Disney and how expensive it is, but watching the kids (especially Hallie) this week just loving meeting characters and princesses has been such a joy. They haven’t picked up an iPad all week and have barely asked for our phones. It may be expensive, but it’s been pretty wholesome and that’s been really nice.]
When we came out of the show the ship was really rocking, we were literally bouncing from side to side in the halls.
At 10:15 there was a “See you soon” show in the main atrium. It was kind of like a last hurrah. All the characters were out and you had 15 minutes to meet them and then reconvene for a final goodbye. The kids ran around in their pajamas getting one last photo.I finally met Mulan, so that was a plus. The farewell was cute.
We got the kids to bed. Madeleine was very sad and almost crying about having to get off the ship tomorrow.
I went out to get a Mocha that wasn’t hot enough, but had a cool Mickey face on it. I also got a Kahlua and Cream. The ship was really moving and we had to take all of the hangers out of the closet and put them on the floor (this is a classic last night of the cruise thing – your clothes are no longer on them to dampen the sounds of them banging against each other).
Anyway, good Day.
Winter Break 2025. Part 5. I Don't Understand What's Happening Here.
Monday morning there was a knock at the door at 7:07am. What is with 7:07?
There was a man standing there with a room service tray. I was like, “I didn’t order room service,” and he said, “yes you did.” Then he checked his notes and said, “oh, the other side.” Come on. Hallie was woken up and I was like hell no. It is way too early. Thankfully she fell back asleep, as did I, as the next think I knew it was 8:45.
We slowly got up and made our way to the buffet shortly before it closed at 10:00am. Normal breakfast fare, including Mickey Waffles. There was an Asian station, but Madeleine wasn’t fond of the Miso soup because it wasn’t like “back home.”
We got the kids changed and Tzvi took them to the pool, while I went to the gym. Unfortunately the clouds came out, but they still had a good time. There was a fantastic Nemo themed splash area that the kids had a great time in. Then they started showing Up on the huge screen over the pool and Tzvi and Madeleine bobbed in the pool watching the first forty-five minutes of the movie.
We had lunch at the buffet. We were able to get impossible burgers, which were good. Then we hit the kids club where they had an “open house activity,” meaning you stay with your kids to make “Stich’s Space Goo,” which is gross blue slime. The kids had fun though.
After that, Tzvi headed off to relax on his own and the rest of us decided to get off the ship and walk around. Did I mention the ship was docked in Nassau, Bahamas today? No? I guess it wasn’t that important. To anyone. The ship was so packed it felt like a sea day. No one got off the ship. We walked the few blocks around the port, but it was pretty gross. The kids stopped at a candy store where they bought a laffy taffy that had melted. We also bought a wood carved elephant and they carved Tzvi’s name into it. We probably spent 1.5 hours off the ship and we definitely didn’t need to spend any longer.
Back on board Tzvi and I went to the adults only section a little while Hadar hung with the kids. We’ve written about all of the Disney characters we met, but I haven’t written about some of the non-Disney characters. We first noticed them walking around last night, and then again today in the hot tub. It must be like 8 families, all southern. All of the women dress alike and their hair is teased up with massive extensions and always in full makeup and gaudy matching outfits and (what I can only imagine is) costume jewelry. The spouses are rarely together, and the kids are also made up with big hair! It’s like dance moms and toddlers in tiaras. We can’t figure out if this is what they normally look like or if it’s like a let’s dress fun on vacation thing. I wish we could ask.
We got ready for dinner and Tzvi took the girls down to look for characters to sign the new autograph book. Sometimes you find characters “on a stroll,” which means they‘re just walking around the ship and not with a photographer. The girls found Snow White on a stroll and she decided to take the kids along with them. It was the cutest thing.
Dinner tonight was in the Royal Court, which is themed like a royal table and there are paintings of princesses all around the room. The food was delicious and the desserts were great tonight.
After dinner we got online for the theater. We had to line up by 745 for an 830 show that they let us in by 8pm for. The Walt Disney Theater is beautiful and they sell buckets of popcorn outside, which is delicious Disney popcorn. Aladdin was the show tonight. It was about an hour and very cute. The kids loved it. The genie was fantastic. We met some more characters and it was time for bed! For some reason the kids are always up until 11.
Tzvi and I walked around again and got a Kahlua and Cream, where we once again saw the southerners. They were all seated around a bar, but the 8 women were on one side and the 8 men were on the other. Tzvi said the men reminded him of Bullit from season 4 of the OC. Bang.
Good day.
Tuesday morning we were docked at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island.
Twenty-five years ago when I took my first Disney cruise (the Disney Magic), the Captain wasn’t able to dock here because it was too windy. So, here we are, ready to go ashore! We did a quick (ha) buffet breakfast and headed off the ship.
As usual, it felt like we were the last people to get off. We found Chip and Dale taking pictures on the dock, then took a little tram to the beach area. There are a few family beaches and one adult only beach. Maybe one day. There were barely any chairs left, but we managed to find 7 together, so that was a win.
The beach is beautiful, but the water was cold. It was so nice to get off on an island that isn’t gross, where you aren’t herded like cattle place to place, and people aren’t coming up to sell you things. I mean, obviously they want to sell you things, it is Disney after all, but it’s not in your face. It’s just pleasant. It felt a lot more like being at the beach at a nice resort than like a shore excursion. We got a delicious mango mojito, obviously in a Disney Cruise cup, and then a smoothie for the kids in an Olaf cup. Can’t wait for that to collect dust in our cup cabinet.
Lunch today was a BBQ, but they had nice vegetarian options and salmon, and of course free ice cream and fountain sodas. We happened to find our waiters Christopher and Raphael at the BBQ. We spoke to Christopher, who we realized reminded us a bit of Goofy, but really he just reminds me of Luigi from cars, but that could be because of his Italian accent. He told us that he was on his second contract of 5 months each. Before Disney he was in Ibiza where he helped his friend open a pizza place. He told us we need to visit Ibiza and that everyone claps when the sun sets there. I told him it’s probably too fun of a place for us.
We got back on the ship around 3ish and the girls hung with Hadar while Tzvi and I went to the adult area to hot tub. We got a Dole Whip with dark rum, which when mixed together tasted like pineapple rum soft serve. Also, they were doing free five minute shoulder massages at the pool, so that was nice.
Dinner tonight was at Animators Palate, which is themed like an animation studio. There are paintbrushes and palates and all of the chairs look like Mickey Mouse. The whole thing is Nemo themed, so Crush the turtle is the main star and comes to the screen next to your table and interacts with you. At one point the whole thing turned into a dance party – they were playing music and all of the waiters were dancing – and my father just looked confused. When we asked him what was wrong he said, “I don’t understand what’s happening here.”
The menu tonight was also really great. There was a cookies and cream sundae that was delicious. So far I’ve been really impressed with all of the dinners.
After dinner there was a big party in the atrium with the characters so Tzvi took the girls. I walked to the shops area near the theater. Tonight’s show is Frozen and I knew people would be lining up early. At 7:40 people were already lined up so I got on it. They opened the theaters doors at 8 and we made sure everyone was with us to get in. They are REALLY strict about saving seats, and funny enough, most people listen! What a concept! Frozen was great. The girls loved it. It wasn’t as funny as Aladdin, but it was well done. As we were walking out of the show, Hallie asked Ashley the cruise director if Elsa and Anna ever come out for meet and greets. She said no, I’m sure because the lines would be nuts.
We took some more pictures after the show, there were some fun Star Wars setups. I held a light saber.
Then we got ice cream, because why not. As we were standing there, Tzvi noticed a woman getting ice cream and pointed her out to me. She was tall, blonde and had tons of makeup on. No, she wasn’t one of the southerners, but she was definitely in the show. Well, what do you know, it was the woman who played Elsa! (I’m not sure if she was supposed to tell us she played Elsa.) We said hello and started talking to her. Hallie was so funny she told her that Ashley said we wouldn’t meet Elsa or Anna, but here we were, meeting Elsa. Elsa told us that it was a LONG audition process, but it’s great getting to play Elsa.
Then it was bedtime. Good day.
