Our First Disney Cruise! (This is a LONG post)

Honestly, this is for my family journal. It's extremely long so don't even worry about reading it :) 

We did it! We went on a Disney cruise! We put this on our “wish list” a few years back when we took Lucy to Disney World for her 4th birthday and we finally just bit the bullet and made it happen this year!

See, when Shawn and I had kids we always said we would take them to Disney Land on their 5th birthdays. Well, that changed when we were told we had to move to NH when Lu was 3. We were a short/cheap flight from Disney World and since we didn’t know if we’d still be there for Lucy’s 5th birthday, we decided to go for her 4th. After that trip we swore we’d never take a toddler back to Disney World. Piper was only 2 and Lucy was just turning 4 and it was soooo exhausting. I remember just barely being able to crawl into my hotel bed each night after a full day at Disney (2 days in a row) and passing out into a hard sleep while my whole body just ached.

This time around, we thought “a cruise will be SO much easier! No pain, not as much walking around, let’s do that for Piper’s 5th birthday instead.”

Um.....

We were wrong. Kinda.

Now, I will say it was beyond magical. It was beautiful and enchanting festive and even nostalgic. But man, it was exhausting!! We only went on a 4 day cruise and I think that's why it took such a toll on us. There was too much to do in too short amount of time. If we had 2 extra days to fit it all in and space it out a bit it wouldn’t have been so tough. But 4 days is all we could afford! Those Disney cruises are expensive!!

Anyway, I’ll just go through the days because that will be a bit easier and hopefully keep this post a little organized :)

Let me preface this all by telling the story of HOW we told the kids about this cruise.  We waited until just a few days before we left.  Disney provides for Mickey and Minnie to call and announce the trip to families, so that's what we did.  We told the girls we had something to tell them so we sat them down on the couch and said "someone special is going to be calling you in a few minutes and you need to listen to what they're going to tell you!" The phone rang and Mickey and Minnie give a short description of what a Disney Cruise is and invited the kids to go with them! Of course they were ecstatic! After the phone call we went into more detail of what a cruise is and Piper started screaming at the top of her lungs in excitement! We then showed them pictures and videos of the cruise ship and they were THRILLED! We gifted them each with light up Minnie head-bands, new Minnie Mouse shirts, Minnie Mouse back packs and necklaces and started to pack! It was awesome that we were able to keep this secret because I had all their teachers in on it and everything. I had to get the school teachers involved because I had to make sure I had make-up work with me and I had to tell their dance teacher about it so that she would let me watch and record their dance performance in class that week since our trip landed on the weekend of their Christmas recital :( A lot of adults knew about the trip before the kids knew and none of them spilled the beans! :)

So, back to it: We flew into Ft. Lauderdale and mistakenly assumed we’d be able to get a van or cheapish shuttle to the Miami port. Wrong.... it was going to be (at best) $160 round trip. Well, Shawn had 3 days free of a rental car that we were hoping to save for a different trip, but at this point we were running late and no option was cheap. We decided renting a car and paying for 1 day out of the 4 was a tad bit cheaper than a round trip bus ride for 5, or about the same cost, and this way we would be able to ride as a family in our own car for the 45 min drive. 

Next, we got there, walked up to the ship and got on within 20 minutes! It was so fast! We went to our room (the biggest I’ve ever had on a cruise, plus we had a balcony!!) and then went to eat some lunch at the buffet. My next 3 words are all you need to read to know that I was in heaven every single day at lunch: unlimited crab legs.

That’s right. Unlimited. Also, unlimited crab claws (King crab- big!!) and unlimited jumbo shrimp. Heaven. When I get to heaven, my kitchen will be stocked with unlimited crab legs, so I now I know what the after-life has in store for me.

**(Hang on- this is a tangent but I gotta include it here because the blog format isn't letting me move these particular pictures for some reason). The next 4 pictures are adorable. Minnie played an impromptu game of Duck-Duck-Goose with some children in the lobby. And she picked Piper as the Goose! Oh man, if you know how obsessed Piper is with Minnie, you know this was a HUGE deal. This is something she will never forget. This made the whole trip worthwhile, right here!**

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, haha: the buffet food was amazing. Much better than the dinners they had at night, in my opinion. Some of the dinners were pretty good but most of them were kinda bland. And if you know me, you know I can’t get enough spice, zest and lemon/lime with my food. But the lunches were 👌🏼.

Ok so Wednesday there was a “celebration” party on deck as we sailed off. All the characters came out and danced around to loud music, the kids got streamers and had a dance party and everyone was loud and happy. We brought our autograph books with us everywhere we went because you never know when you’re gonna run into a character just walking around, and the girls wanted ALL the autographs! Minnie-mouse was the ultimate goal.

Wednesday night we met the family we were assigned to everyday for dinner and they were great! We found out quickly they were millionaires (if not millionaires, then at least close to it!) so I felt a little embarrassed by my Target clothes every night (🙈) but they were honestly some of the nicest people ever! The wife was a hugger and a cheek kisser and they had 3 kids as well- 3 girls. Ages 6 1/2, a just-turned-5 yr old and an 18 month old! Disney matched that up perfectly 'cause we also have a 6 1/2 yr old, an almost 5 year old and a 22 month old. The kids (even the babies) all got along great. They were adorable. All 4 of the girls would gather underneath the table every night after they ate for "secret meetings", hehe. Their girls' names were Juliana, Daniella, and Audriana. The parents were Doug and Petal (pronounced pay-tall). Shawn and I didn’t get any pictures with them but we got lucky to have such nice people to sit and laugh with every night! Thank goodness! The baby’s had competitions each night who could be the loudest, and they also traded window shattering screams back and forth.....but the best part about a Disney cruise is everyone is a parent! Everyone!!! Everyone understands. No one stares at you with “that look” for being too loud. No one shakes their heads at you. The waiters cut the kids food. They bring out seconds when the babies dump their water all over their meals. They bring out different desserts when someone asked for something and then changed their mind once it was laid out in front of them. They treat the kids like royalty, even when they’re naughty. They are saints! I don’t know how they do it!!!

Thursday we went to Key West and first thing’s first, we woke up and dressed up for a meet-and-greet with the princesses Belle, Cinderella and Tiana. After the 15 minutes of hugs and pictures we sent all 3 kids away. Haha, what I mean by that is that we brought Sully to the “Its a Small a World” nursery. Babies under 3 aren’t babysat for free so we only paid for 2 hours of child care since we didn’t know if he’d like it or not. Fortunately for us he loved it! He was wonderful they said! No fussing, no whining, and played the entire time. 

At the same time we brought the girls to their “Oceaneer Club” which is a super cute free “club” for kids 3-12. From 7am to midnight, anytime you want to drop them off. They had a blast!! Shawn and I spent those 2 hours in Key West without the kids, just walking around the shops. We didn’t buy anything but it was fun to explore a bit alone. It’s weird to see all the light poles wrapped up in red and white to look like a candy cane and hear Christmas music playing throughout the streets when it’s 80 degrees outside :)

Of course Daddy and Sully found Mario Cart and played that with the rest of the boys!

After our little day date, we picked the kids up and I took them to the pool while Daddy brought Sully down to nap. He met up with us later and we all went down the big slide a couple of times. I wasn’t brave enough to go down the slide that is a 3 story drop and the floor drops out from under you. Shawn kept saying he’d do it but we honestly never had the time! The kid-friendly slide was more accessible so that’s the one we stuck to.

I've always wanted to do this! We were in a hurry so I couldn't study it well enough to perfect my legs,  but I still love it!!

After dinner the girls and I went to Tangled, the Musical. They lasted about an hour before they started to fall asleep so we went back to our room. It was super cute though! Piper was bummed that she couldn’t finish it. She was mesmerized by it! The cast walked through the aisles and interacted with the audience as part of their performance, so that was super fun! It was really impressive!

The next day was the craziest day. We woke up early once again (when I say early I mean 5am because Sullivan refused to sleep past that hour each day) and had another meet-and-greet with Anna and Elsa in a Winter Wonderland! That was super cute because Piper was dressed like Anna and Lucy was dressed like Elsa so they talked about what they had in common as far as being sisters and things they liked to do together. Then we went back to our room and dressed up for our Meet-and-greet with Santa and milk and cookies. Sullivan would NOT go near Santa. He was terrified and we tried to bring him up to Santa to see if he’d sit on his lap but he let out a scream that shook the entire boat, I swear. So we backed up and decided to try again next year! Santa was so sweet and jolly and had full-on conversations with each child. It was super cute! Now the girls can say they met Santa in the Bahamas! That’s so cool!

This is as close to Santa as Sully would get!

After that we packed up and went to explore the Bahamas! We walked through some shops to get island souvenirs and then walked to a beach about 20 min from our ship. The kids were in heaven. I was too, because any beach is heaven to me. So I guess I’ll add that in my heaven I live on the water with unlimited crab legs. Oh, and my pantry will be stocked with Smoky Davis.

Back to the Bahamas- the water was beyond beautiful and the kids had a blast as they splashed all around. Piper said the sand looked like cookie dough :) It really did! It was so soft too! I’ve been to the Bahamas- I went with Coley for my 21st birthday, and coincidentally we went to that exact same beach! It’s because it’s the closest beach to all the cruise ships that you can walk to :) Shawn had never been though! It was a perfect afternoon! I even got to stop at Dunkins! One of my favorite places, at the beach. Perfect! Maybe my heaven has a Dunkin Donuts next door to my house as well 😂

After dinner there was a Pirate Party on deck! I knew about it before we left so I brought Pirate patches and gold hoop earrings for us all. The ship gave everyone on the boat Mickey Mouse Pirate bandanas to wear, and then Mickey Zip-Lined from mast to mast across the ship and they did a firework show at the end. It was super cool. Lots of dancing on my sore, sore feet. At this point our whole bodies were aching! But Shawn was chipper because he FINALLY got to wear his Hawaiian Christmas shirt in a tropical place. Hahaha! I bought it for him for Christmas a couple of years ago (it has poinsettias and holly's on it) but it wasn't as much fun wearing it in New Hampshire and Oklahoma on Christmas. However, wearing a tropical Christmas shirt on a tropical Christmas cruise was his favorite thing ever! Ha!!

These are our pirate faces, haha!

The next day was Castaway Cay- Disney’s private island! WOW. That place is incredible. It was beyond clean! The beach was white sand and the softest I have ever felt. Like silk under my feet. Bahama sand is really soft but this was even softer. It was beautiful! Unfortunately, Sully didn’t last long... he was so tired from once again waking up at 5 and he was just not in a good mood. He played in the sand and water for a bit and then started losing it so Shawn volunteered to bring him back to the ship for nap (luckily, since it’s Disney’s private island, the ship is right by the beach. It’s pretty much docked at the beach so it’s all close together).

  Anyway, the island had all the characters walking around in Island clothes and hammocks were everywhere. No trash was thrown anywhere because unless you’re on a Disney cruise, you can’t get there so it’s extremely clean! There are splash pads and trams to take you everywhere, a post office to write letters to people if you want, lots of Disney restaurants and stores, etc. Lucy wanted to play in the kids section called Scuttle’s Cove. They have a splash pad and she dug for “whale’s teeth” and they did a scavenger hunt, etc. After awhile Piper wanted to join Lucy, and Shawn had the boy in the ship, so I laid on the beach BY MYSELF for about 45 minutes. It was sooooo nice to just lay down and not worry about my kids for a bit. Not even for a minute. The best part about Disney is, if the kids are being “babysat”, they’re being very well taken care of. They feed them and keep them fully entertained with a ton of activities! Shawn and I would have taken advantage of it way more if we didn’t have Sully with us, since his wasn’t free. For his 5th birthday we want to do another Disney cruise but that time all 3 kids' babysitting will be free and we plan on leaving them more often so we can relax more 😉 Disney even lets you leave your kids on the ship if you want to do port adventures, or whatever. It's super awesome!

Piper found this huge shell in the ocean while she was swimming! Of course we brought it home- she is SO proud of it!

Eventually Shawn met back up with us but it was starting to get really dark and windy. You could see a storm rolling in, but you know how the Tropics are; storms can come in and blow out within minutes so we decided to "wait it out." Unfortunately, the storm hit us within 15 minutes of Shawn being back down there so we packed up and headed up to our room. While we were walking back to the ship, it poured HARD. It stopped after a few minutes and since it was so hot and windy, our clothes dried fast but we could see another storm coming in and this looked like a wall of black just marching towards us in the sky so we didn't want to risk staying. Right when we got on the ship the rain started.  We walked up to our room and opened the door to our balcony and it looked like a hurricane had hit! Luckily we had JUST made it back safely before we got caught in that! It was crazy. The palm trees were bent way over from the wind blowing so hard and the rain fell in thick sheets sideways. The boat started rocking hard and it kept rocking all night. The storm was bad and it actually prevented us from leaving the Port at the time we were supposed to.  We had to wait a couple of hours but even then, the waters were extremely rough that night. Shawn almost fell off the bed from the rocking, and we kept stumbling around.  There were multiple waiters who dropped trays that night at dinner and brushing my teeth in the bathroom was quite the challenge with the back and forth swaying, haha! It caused me to feel like I was rocking for 2 days even after we left the ship. Shawn too! THANKFULLY none of us got sick. What a relief!

This picture doesn't do it justice. It looked amazing with a black sky against the turquoise water.  A phone can't capture what it looked like in real life. It was really cool. 

We packed up that night and left the next day. It was a whirlwind week, but we accomplished all we set out to do- by that I mean, the girls scored all the "autographs" that they were pining for, they were able to meet the princesses and get pictures with them, they were able to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas and sign his "nice list."  Shawn and I had fun exploring Key West withOUT the kids, and the Bahamas WITH the kids, and even though the exhaustion had seeped into our bones, we still would say it was worth it.  

I will say though, I think Sully was a little bit too young. He had fun, but he didn't like being held or in a stroller (confinement turns him into a monster).  So when the girls were meeting characters and standing in lines to get autographs (the characters walk around the ship, but when people see them they immediately form a line to get their pictures/autographs and you never know when you're going to see someone so you always need to be prepared) and Sully had to wait, he did NOT like that. It was pretty exhausting to run after him day after day after day and chase him all around the boat! Plus, he never sleeps well in a pack-n-play so none of us slept well.  And he is terrible in restaurants because once again, he doesn't like being contained. So being in a high-chair for an hour and a half each night didn't sit well with him. He can't understand why there are rules (he's not even 2 yet) so it was a week full of temper tantrums.  Well, he was really good the first day! He thought it was all so cool! The second day he was good and bad, off and on. But days 3 and 4, unless he was at the beach, he was miserable. He's such a punk. He's our last baby so we don't have to do this again someday, thankfully.  Because I'd say any trip to Disney with a child under 3 is too young. It's just too hard!  Next time we go, he will be 5, Piper will be 8 and Lucy will be 9. I think that will be perfect!  Disney sucks you in! Even through the sheer exhaustion we are already planning our next trip, haha! It really is so magical! And I loved the Disney music and Christmas music playing intermittently throughout the Ship's speakers. I loved that when the crew heard Sully screaming and throwing a fit one time, they brought all 3 kids a stuffed animal from the gift shop for free to "spread some cheer" just to help calm him down.  Each one was $18, so it was a very nice gesture!!  I love that the TV's in each room have Disney movies playing all day long on different channels. I love that every single thing on the boat is kid-friendly and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, understands the fits and the tantrums and the craziness that life with kids entails.  They are all parents and we are all in this together! It was a beautiful ship with workers that bend over backwards to try to make sure you have a fantastic week. The energy and the happiness was infectious and they did a magnificent job of ensuring that the Christmas Spirit was felt onboard as well! There were Charles Dicken's Christmas carolers with amazing voices and it was just a really neat experience. I am SO glad we decided to go in December. Yes, it made the month even crazier, but it was extra magical this way! They even brought Piper a little birthday cake, birthday pin and sang to her at dinner one night. Thank goodness for those Christmas babies, right? It was awesome. Truly a once in a lifetime experience.  What is better than the magic of Christmas, mixed with the magic of Disney on a tropical island?? Nothing. Especially seeing it all through your child's eyes. I could not have loved it more!

 

P.S. The girls truly think that Mickey was the captain of the ship. How cute is that???

This was a REAL Gingerbread house!

This was their first time in bunk beds. They alternated who got the top bunk each night. They thought it was the coolest thing ever!

It's hard to see in the picture, but there is a giant screen above this pool that plays Disney movies all day, so you can swim and watch TV at the same time!

This towel turkey was my favorite, hahaha! It made me laugh so hard!

It was cold on the day we got off the ship, but Piper still wanted to stand on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale :)

We picked a real coconut and cracked it open! See the mug in Lucy's hand? That's the water from it. The girls did NOT like the taste of it, but it was pretty cool to get such a huge amount from that thing. Piper wanted a coconut SO badly the whole trip, and we finally got one in Ft. Lauderdale on the last day :) She was so excited!

And NOW- 12 days until Christmas. AHHHHH! I have SO MUCH TO DO! Let's get this show on the road!!!