Disney {Magic} Cruise - Day 1

Back in January, I heard that the Disney Cruise line had a special going on for kids to sail for FREE. I thought it would be the perfect vacation for our family and looked into it a little more. By the time I looked it up online, there were only two different weeks still available. I started to send the links to Caleb via email, but no sooner did I get the email started, I second guessed myself and could hear Caleb saying 'Are you kidding? A vacation is pointless with kids this age....we can't do anything until they are like 10!' And with that thought running through my head, I deleted the email I had started and didn't say anything about it to Caleb.

Fast forward a week. We were all in the car when Caleb started talking about needing a break, saying "we just need to go on a vacation. We haven't gone anywhere in forever." To which I quickly replied, "Funny you should say that...let me tell you about this kids sail for free on a Disney Cruise." After telling him what I knew and about the email I started to send him. He asked me if I booked the trip and when I told him 'no' he told me to go ahead and just do it. 

So that's just what I did that afternoon. We tried to think of another family with kids the same age as ours that might want to go, but the cruise was completely sold out by the end of the day.

We told Savannah about it by showing her pictures of it on the internet a few days later. And with that, the countdown was on. She asked multiple times a day how many more days until the Disney Cruise. It wore me out. I think next time, we'll just tell her the day we leave!

A few weeks before our cruise, I started making outfits for Savannah and Hudson. All Disney inspired, of course. I ended up making 6 outfits for Savannah and 4 shirts for Hudson. And then less than 2 weeks before the cruise, I learned about some other fun things that people do on Disney cruises that I would have never thought about. One being an autograph book. What a great idea! I found some cute ones on Etsy. It was perfect for an autograph on one page, with space for a picture, too. 

The other cute idea was something called a "Fish Extender" or FE. Evidently, there is a metal fish mounted next to each room door that as a slot to hold notes that the cruise staff may need to leave for you. The FE is a something that has pockets and hangs on your fish for other people on the cruise to leave fun little things for the kids. It's hard to explain, so just take a look at the picture.

How do people know what rooms have an FE to put stuff in, you ask? Well....there is a whole online message board for people who are on the same cruise as you! They had even organized and meet and greet for the first day on board ship. =)

Anyways, when I found out about the FE idea, I thought it would add an extra element of fun to the whole trip. Caleb {and other family members...DAD!} thought I was crazy and laughed at the whole idea. But I did it anyways and found this super cute FE on Etsy. Getting my hands on this FE was a huge ordeal {ask me about it sometime}. It literally arrived as we were on our way to Galveston! But, it was worth it! The kids loved coming back to our room and finding their pocket full of goodies.

For the 10 days leading up to the cruise, I gave her a little gift of new things to take on the cruise {swimsuit, sunglasses, beach towel, etc.}. The last thing she got was her own suitcase. So the night before we left, she helped me pack her suitcase. We laid out every thing we would be packing, so we could be sure we had everything we needed for the week.

When it came time to put everything in the suitcase, Savannah made the comment "Is it time to pack my collection of shoes" Haha, she loves shoes just as much as I do!

When the long awaited day finally arrived {Tuesday, March 19}, we were out of the house by 8 a.m. and started the 5 1/2 hour drive down to Galveston, TX. The kids were perfect on the drive, but it felt like it took forever to get there! And neither kid slept for a minute. I wasn't excited about Hudson not having his usual 2-3 hour napped and just hoped he {and I} would make it through the rest of the day okay without it.




Caleb stood in the very long registration line while I just stayed off to the side with the kids so they could roam around a little after sitting in the car for so long. Hudson started getting tired after 30 minutes of running around, so being the good big sister that she is, Savannah was trying to help him take a nap.

We finally made our way onto the ship and to our room. The kids were beyond excited! After dropping off all of our stuff in the room, we went up to the top deck of the ship for the "Sail Away" party. 

 

We opted to have the early dinner {5:30} rather than the 8:00 dinner. So once the ship had pulled away from the dock, we headed back to the room to change and get ready for dinner. It was on our way to dinner that we had our first encounter with a character. Goofy came running down the stairs and both kids just about lost it. Savannah was nearly in tears and Hudson just kept yelling 'no!' 

We quickly went into the dining room, but it took a while before the kids calmed down. We had tried to prepare Savannah about the characters, but after seeing her reaction to Goofy, I was afraid she would not like seeing any of the characters the whole time we were on the cruise. 

It had been a long day, plus no nap for Hudson, so we took him back to the room after dinner and put him to bed. We had our pack 'n' play for him and the poor boy was so tired he went to sleep so quickly. We took 2-way radios with us and left one in the room {with a rubber band around the "talk" button to keep it held down} and we kept the other one with us. This way, Hudson could go down for naps/bedtime at his normal times, but the rest of us didn't have to sit in a dark and quiet room. Call us crazy, but it worked! 

Every night after dinner, there was a Broadway style show. So after we put Hudson to bed, we took Savannah to the show. She loved the shows every night and it was fun getting to spend a little time with just her.

Then we were able to see a few characters and get their autographs. As you can see in the pictures, she was still not too sure about being close to the characters, but she hesitantly did it.

Savannah got to stay up way past her bedtime, but she was so well behaved the entire day. We were all in bed by 11 p.m. and excited for the next full day on the cruise!