A big step…Hello 2020 + Disney Cruise recap!

Well it’s official, I own my own .com! I’m really excited to take this step in 2020. Something about investing in this space and truly making it my own, reinvigorates me. Even if I still can’t manage to get more than 1 post a month done. 🙂  It’s still a work in progress, but exciting nonetheless.

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions but I have decided my word for the year is Intentional. Time is limited, demands are overwhelming, and it’s more important than ever that I attempt to be truly intentional with how I spend my time. Do you pick a word for the year?  If so, drop it in the comments! 

We recently returned from our big family Disney cruise and I want to share a few highlights of the trip here. I’ve had a number of people reach out regarding how the kids did, if we would recommend the trip overall, and logistically how we managed to get 15 people through the trip relatively unscathed (Dennis tore his MCL getting into the hot tub.) So let’s dive in!

We planned a few months ago to commit to going on a vacation instead of just talking about it or dreaming about a day when the timing would work out.  We just booked it. It was expensive and came during a time of year that is pretty busy for all of us work-wise, but it was important so we made it work.  Escaping a week of cold South Dakota January for sunny ocean exploration was just what the doctor ordered.  I was really excited leading up to the trip and honestly didn’t think much about it aside from getting it on the calendar and requesting the time off work.  It was seriously a couple of months after it was booked that it finally registered with me that I would be traveling with 3 kids 4 and under through airports before living in the same room with them for 6 days on a boat.  I started to mildly panic! That didn’t sound relaxing at all  plus I had never been on a cruise and tend to be prone to motion sickness so there was a strong possibility I’d be miserable the entire time anyway.  Woof.  

Plenty of people told me you could hardly even tell that you’re on a boat when cruising, they lied but more on that later.  We booked a direct flight for the trip to Miami with the hopes that it would make the start of our trip as smooth as possible.  The only downfall was that the flight left at 5:30 in the morning. We set our alarms for 1:30 a.m., woke up, packed the boys in the car and hit the road at 2 a.m. for the 2 hour drive to the airport. Thankfully the boys fell asleep right away in the car and slept through the ride. We got all checked in, gave the airline as many bags as humanly possible and managed to grab a bite to eat and giant coffees before getting on the plane.

Dennis, Duke, Theo, and Grayson all managed to get some good sleep on the long flight to Miami. I have terrible luck at sleeping on planes but managed to relax and watch a movie while they snuggled up. We landed around 10:30 a.m., took a shuttle to our hotel and went out searching for Cuban food. We got a recommendation for a divey place that was also a liquor store…it ended up being seriously amazing! We sat on the patio and soaked up the sunshine before heading back to our hotel to nap and relax before letting the kids swim for awhile. We tried to get everyone to bed at decent times, knowing we had a big day ahead.

Saturday morning we ate a delicious hotel breakfast complete with waffles, eggs, and sausage before taking a shuttle to the Port of Miami where our beautiful, giant, mickey themed, ship waiting. Duke called it a “boatship” and squealed with excitement when he saw how big it was! He kept saying “this is the best day of my life!” and it made me so dang happy. Our trip was Saturday to Thursday:

• Saturday: Cruise takeoff at 4 p.m. We had an awesome dance party with all of the characters as we set sail. We checked out our rooms, explored the boat a bit, ate dinner and went for a late night swim + movie watching before settling in to our first night of sleeping in the same room. The boys actually did really well and the black out curtains in the room had everyone sleeping in until almost 9 a.m. I was SO relieved. No sleep for this mama is NOT good for anyone.
• Sunday: Day at Sea- today was our first full day at sea and it was a little rocky. The water was rough and the boat was rocking quite a bit… just making our way to breakfast was entertaining as we weaved back and forth and tried not to drop any babies. We had reserved times in the nursery for the littlest kids to nap during the afternoon and there was a kids club for ages 3+ where they could do crafts, play games, watch movies, etc. It was nice to get small breaks and know the kiddos were either getting much needed sleep or being entertained by seriously amazing staff. Our timing was never quite perfect and this day was fun but also a little disorienting…there were so many things going on on that boat, all of which we tracked through the app. It was hard not to feel guilty for not participating in EVERYTHING while also trying to find time to just relax and enjoy being on vacation. Overall, we had a good day, but I wish we would’ve known to sit down that morning as a group and decide what all people wanted to do, what we wanted to skip, and make a plan of attack for exploring the boat.
• Monday: Grand Cayman- we had strong debates about how to spend our time off the boat during the day at Grand Cayman. Most of the excursions had age restrictions that left out most of our group or were too expensive to justify. We found out that morning that due to weather, most of the excursions had been cancelled away. Most of us were ready for a little time off the boat so we took off to explore Grand Cayman, check out some souvenir shops, grab lunch, and drinks and soak up some sun. Again, I wish we had planned things out a little more…we ended up at a much nicer restaurant than we were intending and probably would’ve gotten off the boat earlier in the morning if we had known the lines to get back on the boat would be long.
• Tuesday: Day at Sea- unfortunately the weather was not great on our last day at sea. We were so excited for some adult time at the pool but it was overcast and rainy. We did end up commandeering a hot tub and getting a solid 45 minutes of soak time before it was raining too hard, which was delightful. Tuesday night was also our adult-only dinner. We dropped the kids off at their respective daycare, got all dressed up, and headed to the top of the ship for the BEST dinner. We ate multiple courses, drank wine, laughed, talked, and absolutely enjoyed every minute we had.
• Wednesday: Castaway Cay- by far the BEST day of the trip. Castaway Cay is Disney’s island in the Bahamas and it was pure magic. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, they had a giant barbecue, dance parties with the characters on the beach, snorkeling, and plenty of sand-castle building. I drank pina coladas, swam in the ocean, and loved watching the boys splash and play for HOURS. They seriously had the best day and we all made a mental note that our next vacation needs to be ALL beach.
• Thursday: debarkation at 8:30 a.m. This was an early morning but not as bad as we expected. We used an awesome car service to take us to Fort Lauderdale for our return flight home and even though we were hours early for our afternoon flight, we were able to kill time in the airport, relax, catch up on all the cell phone notifications we had missed while on the boat, load up on candy at the candy store because #vacation and make the kids race each other back and forth down any relatively empty space we could find to burn off said sugar rushes. We landed around 11 p.m. and made the two hour drive home, arriving in our garage at 1 a.m.- perfectly exhausted and thrilled to be passing out in our own beds. Except I was so tired I fell asleep laying Theo down and never made it out of his room.

On Friday morning, Dennis had to go back to work. I relaxed with the boys before dropping them off at daycare around 11 a.m. so I could do laundry and stock up on groceries. I was SO thankful to have 3 days before I had to get back into the work swing of things. Overall, I’m really glad we took the trip. I can now say I have officially experienced a cruise and it was a lot of fun. For our crew specifically, we probably wouldn’t do another one. Based on cost and overall routine, we would much prefer an all-inclusive kid-friendly resort on the beach! Next time…

If you have any specific questions about the trip- drop them in the comments section! I’d be happy to answer anything, discuss travel hacks, trip logistics that worked for us, etc!

I am going to hunker down this weekend while we get buried in snow. I hope everyone is safe and WARM wherever you are!

Until next time…

-T-