We headed off from Mobile, AL to Port Canaveral, FL in May 2013 toting our almost 5 year old and almost 2 year old. It's just 550 miles...no sweat!
Saturday, Road Trip!
The goal: be on the road by 8:30am, make two long stops, be at the hotel in Florida by bed time. Reality: Jake woke up with a fever. Great. He's had a runny (albeit, clear) nose for two days and the night before I caught him tugging on his ear. This morning he was super grumpy and clinging and temped in at 99.7. Ugh! Borderline. I chatted with a nurse practitioner friend since I'm unable to make a decision. Selfishly, I wanted to pump him full of Tylenol and tell him to "toughen up, kid! I've got a schedule to keep. Let's get on the road!" She advised us to hit the urgent care on the way out of town. About that time, Haley started whining and I took her temp out of curiosity...100.4. Great...urgent care it is! Toby and I prayed on the way for healing. After burning 45 minutes of travel time in the waiting room they call my kids back for their vitals...98.6, 98.7. I rolled my eyes and threw my hands up in frustration! Toby kindly reminded me that we had prayed for healing...oh yeah. Everybody checked out great, but we hit the Wal-Mart on the way to the interstate to grab some tissues for that running nose. Wouldn't you know that I never opened them and forgot all about them? So, we're standing on healing! I suppose a miracle is more fun than my road trip itinerary anyway! I'll take it! Thank you, Jesus!
It's pushing noon and we're finally on the road! By some other miracle we make it to Tallahassee (243 miles, per Google maps) before we make our first stop. An awesome Florida friend pointed us to Piggy's BBQ for lunch and it was a booming success. How about kids eat free on Saturdays (we'll call that favor), a feast of delicious BBQ, and a great pond right out back for stretching and running. Ok, so not so much a pond as much as a pretty drainage facility, but none the less it was great. And the perfect spot for the first of our road trip presents! A little stuffed Mickey for Jake and a dress up Minnie with her own ride for Haley. They were thrilled and the next leg flew by with the exciting new entertainment.
New toys at Tallahassee stop
After another stop in Ocala and then making about 10 stops to pay $1 tolls, we finally made it to our hotel in Port Canaveral, pushing 10pm, FL time. And here I am first faced with my greatest fear of the trip. Jake has never slept well outside of his bedroom, and since his recent move to the big boy bed, I was terrified of how he'd do here. After opening their next present - Mickey and Minnie pajamas - we made a pallet on the floor for Jake (I had a great, sturdy, denim picnic blanket in the car...no, I did not let my son sleep on a nasty, bare hotel floor...yuck.) Thankfully they were so pooped from the trip that they both passed out pretty quick. All was well until about 5am when J was no longer interested in his new pallet bed on the floor of a strange place. He never does well about laying down in our bed, he only wants to play, but I figured it was worth a shot. He climbed in and much to our surprise, he snuggled up next to me and fell back asleep. And this became his 5am routine for the next 5 nights. I must say, it's my favorite thing about the whole trip...snuggles and snoozes with my little guy.
New Mickey & Minnie PJs at the hotel
Sunday, Day 1, boarding day
Excuse me, I believe the nautical people call it "embarkation". Anyway, we were shooting for pulling up to the terminal by 9am to be one of the first onboard. However, thanks to the amazing blackout curtains, no one stirred until 8:45. Oh well, we still made it by 10:30 and went through the whole check-in process with no hiccups.
Our first shot of the Disney Dream
Our boarding number was #39 and the sweet guy that checked us in wrote it on our card as "#3 9". Then he showed me how to cover the 9 with my thumb and he winked at me. Basically, he was telling me to sneak on with boarding group #3. Hmm...tempting...very tempting. Toby and I laughed about it, but in the end we decided to stick with group #39, even though it meant an extra hour's wait, just didn't feel right about starting our vacation with a big fat lie...although it would have been really easy to pull it off.
Waiting patiently at the terminal to embark
We finally get onboard, grab some lunch, check out the digs, head to our room and start to unpack. We start to get ready for dinner and Toby turns to me, "Where are my pants?" Hmm...I had just unpacked everything and had a thought, You know, I don't think I saw any pants come through...oh dear. We retraced our steps and concluded that a communication error had left his pants hanging in the closet...550 miles away. Commence freak out. The attire for dinner had been noted "cruise casual" but thanks to my previous cruise experience, I had prepared us to be "cruise fancy". Well, fancy for our simple world anyway. And now, Toby had nothing on board but swim trunks, sleeping shorts, and two pair of cargo shorts. Nice. Five minutes before we were suppose to be at dinner, he went flying out the door in search of pants, but returned empty handed. He resigned and sheepishly showed up at dinner in a golf shirt and shorts, feeling like an idiot, worried they wouldn't admit him into the dining room. He asked an attendant at the door about his attire, to which the angel replied in an awesome British accent, "Sir, this is your vacation. What you are wearing is fine for dinner." Thank you Jesus! We did have plans for dinner the next night at the adult only restaurant, to which there truly was a higher dress code, but after explaining the situation, the attendant returned to our table half way through our meal with a pair of black dress pants, in Toby's size. Ta-Da!!
First dinner at the Royal Palace dining room
Monday, Day 2, Nassau
We are not shoppers, my children are not capable of snorkeling, and the idea of no itinerary was appealing, so we chose to stay on the ship on Nassau day. Thanks again to the amazing blackout curtains, no one stirred until after 8am. (Note to self...make blackout curtains for kids' rooms.) We get moving, start getting dressed when Toby hears a nasty come from J's direction. Per his new pooping routine, Jake went to hide...behind the curtains. When I grabbed him and laid him on the bed for a diaper change, I discovered the most horrendous, liquid, diarrhea diaper of...his...life. And he's giggling about it. We're talking soiled the curtains, the carpet, the sheets on the bed...everywhere. We didn't even attempt to clean him there but quickly transferred him to the tub for an all out scrubbing. We were mortified to run into our stateroom host in the hallway and ask him to "please change the sheets...and you might want to clean the carpet...and check the curtains." Awesome! The Disney staff was so great. They never made us feel like an inconvenience, but made every effort to be helpful and make our trip wonderful on every level.
After that little adventure we had an awesome day swimming, riding the water slide, eating far too many free ice cream cones, and exploring the ship. Jake finally tuckered out for a nap and Haley and I went to catch Mickey and his gang for some pictures. Let's just say we never collected one of those picture perfect family shots with Mickey. Both of my kids were very curious about these large, furry creatures, but no thank you, do not make me get too close. Surprisingly, when it was our turn, Haley did pose like a statue for 4 of the 6 friends, but refused to acknowledge Goofy or Donald. Oh well, it was better than a total meltdown.
Swimming big in the Mickey Pool
Brave picture with Mickey Mouse
Tuesday, Day 3, At Sea
Jake's 5am bed swap came again, but this time instead of snuggling up with me, he opted for Toby. He cuddled in close and laid his head on daddy's shoulder. Just as I was thinking, so sweet, I hear gurgling and gagging, and see Toby jump up just in time to avoid catching a stomach full of puke! Yes, exactly the kind of fun I want to have at 5am!! Fortunately, Jake felt better after the one wave and went back to sleep easily, but we had to ask our stateroom host to please change the sheets, again. Thanks to J's adventures I did a load of laundry that morning...the upside was only coming home with 2 days of dirty clothes. :) We spent the morning playing putt putt and in the pool and the kids spent the afternoon in the kids' clubs and the nursery. Freeeedom!!!! It's what I had been fantasizing about for weeks....alone time with my hubs, on a boat, in the sun. So, what did we do with this free time? Slept. Yes, dropped off the kids, went back to the room, and I was out cold for the next 3 hours. It was glorious! I think Toby watched a movie next to me...so, that counts as great together time, right?
Putt putt lesson with Daddy
Fun in Nemo's Reef splash pad
After break time, we brought the kids back up to the room to get dressed for pirate night. Haley was not interested, thank you very much. After 10 minutes of convincing that it wasn't a "pirate costume" but a shirt and pants, and she didn't have to wear the bandana, she finally got dressed and we headed off to dinner. We got stuck in a storm that night, so the 10:30pm scheduled firework show was cancelled (good thing, there's no way my babes would have been cheerful at 10:30). We popped by the pool deck and noticed that everyone else was either at dinner or a show, so the water slide was all ours. Toby carried Haley up the stairs and they rode it 6 times in a row...at 9pm...how awesome are we?!? Considering one ride usually involved a 20+ minute wait, this was exciting! Jake and I sat and watched the Lion King on the pool deck and waved to Daddy and Haley as they rode by. Afterward, we all 4 piled into the bed for a movie...Toby's favorite time of the trip. They both passed out within 30 minutes.
Pirate night
Wednesday, Day 4, Castaway Cay private island
Thank the Lord, we did not start the day with any bodily disturbances. We got dressed, ate breakfast and headed off the ship for the first time in three days, for fun in the sand and sun (well, it was back behind the clouds anyway). After the 10 minute hike to the sand (tip - take the trolley), we set up camp. My children cared nothing about building sandcastles with the sand toys I had hauled all the way from Mobile and instead wanted to swim. I stepped my toes in and concluded that the water was no warmer than 60 degrees, complimenting the overcast skies and strong breeze nicely. I'm not too much of a sissy and I don't complain much, but I don't care for cold. No thank you. So, a cold beach day is not terribly exciting for me. The kids started turning blue, so we abandoned the beach after about 20 minutes of fun. We hit the splash pad for a bit, grabbed some lunch and started heading back to check the kids in for another round of fun in the kids' clubs. And the bottom fell out. We only had to stand in the rain for 3-4 minutes waiting for the next trolley, but then it dropped us off a good 200 yards from the ship. I took off my shoes and ran through the puddles, Haley didn't find it quite as amusing. Toby had Jake wrapped like a mummy in two towels in the umbrella stroller as they ran across the island. Needless to say, we were all soaked from head to toe by the time we made it back onboard. By the time we made it back up to our room, the rain had stopped and the sun was beginning to peak through...bummer. The kids had a warm bath, went off to play and Toby and I were free again! We went back out on the island to the adult only beach this time, although that was pretty pointless because 3,950 of the 4,000 passengers onboard had already come back to the ship even though we still had over 2 hours left. With the exception of two ladies in la la land, and 5 or 6 snorkelers that were way out, we had the entire adult beach to ourselves. It was delightful.
Haley enjoying the beach at Castaway Cay
Jake checking out the cold water
Ribs and ice cream for lunch...yummy!
Private beach on a private island
We rounded out the night with dinner, a firework show off the side of the ship, and a show. To say that my boy loves a show, would be an understatement. As soon as it was over he started frantically signing "more, more".
Fireworks!!
Last sunset
Tuckered out babies
Thursday, Day 5, Debarkation day
I do not understand why the cruise industry does this, but you MUST be off the ship at a horrendous hour on the last day. I'm sure there's a really great reason, I just don't know what it is. Thanks to the amazing blackout curtains, we were yet to see anything before 8am all week, but this day we were to be out of our room by that hour. Breakfast was at 6:45...we missed it. Anyway, thanks to my mad, late night packing skills, our last morning went off pretty smoothly...minus Haley's nasty, upset stomach, of course. We missed breakfast, but made it through customs pretty smoothly and pulled out of the parking garage at 8:30am. I was quite impressed with us. We hit Dunkin Donuts on our way out of town, primarily because we don't have a DD in Mobile and we wanted to compare. (Just FYI, I prefer Krispy Kreme.) Although we only made two short stops on the way home, the journey seemed endless for all of us. Maybe it was the continuous barrage of "Are we home yet?" questions that came from the backseat. Thankfully, we made it home safely without any complications, and we all were out by 8pm.
Please do not think I am complaining about our trip. We made some wonderful memories and treasured being unplugged from the world and our responsibilities. To have 5 days to focus all of our attention on our kids was priceless and we will treasure it always. I am such a planner, and when things didn't go as I had imagined, there was nothing we could do but laugh about it and go with it. We'd do it again in a heartbeat!
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