Paradise and Magic..All Rolled into One Vacation! UD3/28 A Top 10 Wrap Up

[mommytothreeboys]

Here I am! Back and ready to start this Trip Report! I have pics uploading and I am working on my first installment.....I hope you join me on this fabulous adventure! Can't wait to share all the details with you!

Trip Details:

Cruise to the Bahamas on Royal Caribbean with a side trip to the Happiest Place on Earth!

Dates: Monday May 3rd through Sunday May 9th

Who: JUST my incredible husband and I!

Here's a teaser pic or two to get started! I'll be back soon with my first official installment!

Quick Links
And so it begins!
You know what they say about Hindsight.....
A Change of Plans!
Gotta love the GPS!
Bon Voyage!
Bon Voyage--continued
Short Life Interruption!
We Woke Up In Paradise!--part 1
We Woke Up In Paradise!--part 2
Let's Get Dressed Up!
OT--Proud Mom Moment
Taxi Rides and Flamingos--Nassau Part 1
More Ardastra Gardens--Nassau, part 2
A Walking Tour--Nassau, part 3
A Walking Tour--continued
Arrggh....Pirates and Plunder--Nassau, part 4
Our Nassau Day Comes to an End--but who's sick?
A Day at Sea
A Private Light Show
Back on Dry Land
Back on Dry Land, part 2
Ahhh....AKL!
I'm BACK!
A Delicious African Meal!
On to the MAGIC!
Space missions, Mountains, and Pirates!
Princesses, Parades and Presidents
A Leisurely MK Evening!
Why is all the Dole Whip gone?
Minor MK Meltdown
Soaking in as much Magic as we can....
A Top 10 Wrap Up
More Top 10

 

[Goofy442]

Great start love the pictures!

 

[Angies1274]

YAY! You started!!! I can't wait to hear all about your trip Missy!!!

 

[mickeystoontown]

First off.....you look amazing in the pictures! Your hard work really paid off. Second, I can't wait to hear all about your trip!

 

[LuvEeyore]

I'm on board as well. Love the pictures.

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Great start love the pictures!

Hi and

YAY! You started!!! I can't wait to hear all about your trip Missy!!!

Hi Angie!! I figured I had waited long enough! Can't wait to share it with you!

First off.....you look amazing in the pictures! Your hard work really paid off. Second, I can't wait to hear all about your trip!

Thanks so much Lisa!

I'm on board as well. Love the pictures.

Hi there...thanks for joining in!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Before I “get this party started,” so to speak, a few introductions are in order. For those of you who know (and love, LOL!) me already, just humor me!

My name is Missy and I am 40 years old. (“Hi Missy!” --sorry, I couldn't resist!) I am the self appointed keeper of all things Disney at my house. We took our first family vacation to my Happy Place in 2007 and went back again in 2009. I have 3 sons, Daniel (15), Isaiah (12- 13 at the end of May), and Jonah(9). My boys are Disney-crazed as well. My favorite character is Tink and my favorite princess is Snow White. If I could live in a place with a parade every day and fireworks every night, I would!

My husband is Jeff....and also newly 40. Jeff loves Disney as much as I do, but would probably not admit that to too many people. He does not at all enjoy the planning phase of a vacation, so he leaves that up to me! YAY! His favorite character by far is Pinocchio. He has a hard time relaxing and “unplugging” on vacations, but we are totally working on that. Stay tuned to see how he did on this trip!

This trip was born around the time we boarded the Magical Express bus to leave Disney in 2009! I knew that a big family vacation would not be in the cards in 2010, but a Mom and Dad getaway was not out of the question. My devious little brain began to dream about how I could make that happen at Disney!

Around February or so, we began seriously thinking about going on a trip, but Jeff was not SOLD on Disney. He wasn't opposed, but he expressed interest in changing it up a bit and trying something new. We began to look into cruises as this was something we had never done before. On pricing them out, we realized we could totally afford a short cruise to the Bahamas on our budget. Side note---we are trying to save funds to fix up the house a little at a time so we can move to a bigger one soon, so money was an issue. Aside from the money, I get very seasick and the thought of a cruise really made me nervous. So, we decided a short, 4 night cruise with only one day “at sea” (not in a port) would be the best way to start.

It wasn't until late February that Jeff gave me the green light to book a cruise! We had decided on a Royal Caribbean cruise departing from Port Canaveral. Again, my Disney senses are always on alert and I knew if we was that close, I was GOING to find a way to squeeze in a visit to the Mouse!

Our cruise was scheduled to leave on a Monday and return on a Friday. So, we had the weekend before we would have to fly back home. A one-day trip to WDW is very pricey so I had resigned myself to just going to Downtown Disney to get my Disney fix. Then I remembered the Give a Day, Get a Disney Day promotion and I was off to the races! I researched a project that Jeff and I could do together. I approached Jeff with the “IF I could get us a FREE ticket to Disney for a day, would you consider adding it to our vacation plans?” song and dance. Of course, because the man loves me (and secretly loves Disney!) he agreed!

All that to explain the birth of this FANTASTIC couples get-away! If you would like to see pics of our Project Linus volunteer project, you can to to my Pre-Trip report (“I Can't Believe...”) in my signature. But here's one just to give you an idea.

Now that we have the vacation plans set, here is an outline of what this trip looked like!

Monday May 3—depart Rochester and head to Port Canaveral to board the Monarch of the Seas (sail away set for 4:30 pm)

Tuesday May 4—spend the day on beautiful CoCo Cay, Royal Caribbean's private island.

Wednesday May 5—spend the day exploring Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas

Thursday May 6—day at sea spent basking in the sun and enjoying each other's company!

Friday May 7—leave the ship and spend the day exploring nearby Cocoa Beach before heading to Orlando for an 8:05 ADR at Boma!

Saturday May 8--Magic Kingdom here we come! Rope Drop to Wishes, baby!!

Sunday May 9—no real plans except to shop at DTD, eat at Cooke's of Dublin, and enjoy our last day. Flight for Rochester leaves MCO at 7:25 pm.


So there you have it. Introductions-check, pics-check, vacation outline-check! Next up....


BON VOYAGE!! Our Vacation begins!

 

[LuvEeyore]

Looks like fun!! Glad you could get in on GAD...the day we decided to go in July GAD closed.

 

[heaven2dc]

How exciting - a cruise plus a day at MK!

 

[Planning fanatic mom]

I'm in and can't wait.

Lots of details please.

 

[mousescrapper]

I'm in be back to read...

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Looks like fun!! Glad you could get in on GAD...the day we decided to go in July GAD closed.

Yeah...it closed the weekend after we signed up. I was concerned that we wouldn't get our vouchers, but if you were already registered it was fine. I'm really surprised Disney didn't extend such a great promotion....it was supposed to last all year and it was done in 3 months. Sorry you couldn't take advantage of it.

How exciting - a cruise plus a day at MK!

Welcome!! It really was exciting! I can't wait to share all about it!

I'm in and can't wait.

Lots of details please.

Hi there! I'll do my best with details!

I'm in be back to read...

Hi Julie! Thanks for dropping in! Come back when you can!

 

[longing2Batdisney]

Hey! Missy
you know we love you!
great start and intro to the trip...the outline of your days sounds like a great flow! I was telling Danny about you guy's trip and now we are talking about doing the same for 2012! But, I am so hoping I can figure out a way to afford a Disney cruise...if not no sweat we can hope on another line!!!

can't wait to travel along with you guys and see if Jeff can relax!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Hey! Missy
you know we love you!
great start and intro to the trip...the outline of your days sounds like a great flow! I was telling Danny about you guy's trip and now we are talking about doing the same for 2012! But, I am so hoping I can figure out a way to afford a Disney cruise...if not no sweat we can hope on another line!!!

can't wait to travel along with you guys and see if Jeff can relax!

Hi Connie! I'm so glad you are here! I saw the pics of Dayne's graduation on FB....you must be so proud! Congrats to him and to you as well!

SO exciting that you may be doing a couples trip in 2012! I would have loved a Disney cruise too, but for the price it just was a better deal to sail with another cruise line. Going to the MK for the day was the best of both worlds!

 

[DisMomAmy]

Great start Missy!! Thanks for the heads up or I might have missed this. It's been a really crazy busy couple of weeks so my DIS time has been limited. But thanks to a sick kiddo I'm forced to have some down time today and hope to do some catching up. Can't wait to read more!!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Great start Missy!! Thanks for the heads up or I might have missed this. It's been a really crazy busy couple of weeks so my DIS time has been limited. But thanks to a sick kiddo I'm forced to have some down time today and hope to do some catching up. Can't wait to read more!!

Hi Amy! I'm so glad you made it over! Sorry to hear about the sick boy though. I hope he feels better!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Monday May 3rd, 2010

After 3 months of planning, all the packing was done, all the instructions and medical releases had been written and printed, all the checklists had been checked, my mom arrived from Pennsylvania, and Jeff and I were READY TO GO!!

Our flight was scheduled to leave Rochester at 5:55 am....the first flight out. Unfortunately, it was not a direct flight as Airtran changed their direct to Orlando to an afternoon flight. We had a connection to make in Atlanta, but we were still scheduled to arrive in Orlando at 10:35 am. Plenty of time to make the one hour drive to Port Canaveral in order to be on the ship by 3 pm. Well....you know what they say about the best laid plans.......

Jeff's dad had kindly agreed to drive us to the airport (only about a 10 minute drive) at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. He was scheduled to pick us up at 4:30 am. After a restless night of “too excited to sleep” sleep, the alarm went off and Jeff and I jumped out of bed to get ready to head to the airport. My mom was sleeping on our couch in the living room so, poor thing, she was awake to hear our last minute preparations. We brushed our teeth, put on our traveling clothes, gathered the last minute items for our toiletry bags and carry-ons and headed out the door to Dad's waiting car just before 4:30 am. WE ARE ON OUR WAY!!

Arriving at the Rochester International Airport just after 4:45, it was fairly quiet. We had checked in online for our flight and also paid our $30 baggage fee in advance, so all we had to do was check our luggage and head through security. That all went very quickly and before we knew it we were in line to get some much needed COFFEE!! I am a coffee addict, I admit it! And there's no better coffee than the coffee you get in the airport as you are getting ready to leave on vacation! It just tastes better, don't you think??

After getting out coffee fix, we headed to our gate to wait for our flight.

See...it really WAS early!

Let me do a little explaining about this next picture. Jeff's boss had given him this little “green cat” to take on the trip. She told him to take pics of Green Cat (as we so unimaginatively called him) on our vacation....kind of odd, but we were game! (For a while anyway....stay tuned!) So, this is Green Cat waiting at the airport!

Here's one of those “stretch your arm out as far as you can so we can get a pic of both of us” pictures. When it's just the two of you, together pictures are hard! We came to rely on the kindness of strangers!

Before long, our flight was being called to board. YAY! Fortunately, even though we did not pay extra to select our seats ahead of time, Jeff and I were sitting together on this flight. We got on the plane and settled in.

Before I get too far, I need to tell you a little background. I had been reading and researching cruise vacations like a good little vacation planner. The one rule I chose to disregard was “Don't travel the same day the ship departs.” The overwhelming recommendation was to travel the day before and stay overnight in the port city to ensure that you made the ship in a timely fashion. A cruise ship WILL NOT wait for you, so if you miss it, you're out of luck. My thinking was that we were on the first flight out in the AM, we were scheduled to arrive in PLENTY of time to make the drive to the port, it was spring so weather should be a non-issue, and last but not least....we were already spending a little extra money to spend the weekend AFTER the cruise in Orlando. I didn't want to spend any extra for a hotel the night before. This decision proved to be a real point of concern in the weeks leading up to the trip. I was really worried that we would have problems. I did the math and we really only had a short window of time to play with if there were delays, etc. We needed to be on the ship by 3 pm. It was an hour drive from MCO to the port, so we needed to leave MCO no later than 2. We had to get off the plane, get to baggage claim, get our luggage and find the shuttle we had arranged through the cruise line. It was all beginning to really freak me out. What did NOT help my worrying was all the travel issues friends had been having recently. First, a friend went to Florida in March and was 24 hours behind schedule due to flight delays...she had to stay overnight in Atlanta and get a flight the next day. Another friend took a Disney cruise in March and ended up having to take the train from JFK back to Rochester due to flight delays and missed connections in Orlando. Yet another friend had to rent a car and drive from Baltimore back to Rochester due to flight delays in Tampa. But what was done was done and all I could do was hope and pray for no delays. All the worrying in the world was not going to change our situation, so I tried to be calm.

All that to say that I was very relieved when we boarded the plane on time! I had been watching the weather in Atlanta. There were thunderstorms in the forecast, but if all went well, we would be in and out of that airport before they hit.

Once we settled into our seats, I began to relax and really feel like we were on vacation! Jeff and I joked about the complimentary magazine with Megan Fox on the cover...lucky guy! We listened to a grandmother in front of us try to help her grand-daughters get settled in, it was obviously their first time flying. Before long, the pilot came on and gave us the pre-flight info---how long we would be in the air, weather conditions, etc. He did say that the weather in Atlanta was not great, but didn't seem too concerned. Within a few minutes we were pulling away from the gate and headed toward the runway.

As we waited our turn to take-off, the pilot came on again and said that we were not cleared to take off for Atlanta because there was a ton of air traffic over Atlanta that could not land due to weather. He assured us that he would update us soon and that we would not be kept out on the tarmac long due to the newly passed regulations. Uh-Oh. All that worry came crashing back in. I struggled to fight back tears as Jeff squeezed my hand and tried to assure me that everything would be fine. Within a few minutes, we heard the pilot again.

“Well folks, I told you I would update you. I didn't tell you it would be a good update...”

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hooray for getting off to the airport on time. I like the idea of Green Cat and can't wait to see where all he ends up.

You are scaring me with this delayed takeoff. Please don't hold us in suspense too terribly long.

 

[longing2Batdisney]

Hey! Missy
I can see why you are so nervous about the flight...I would have been in tears along with you!....waiting for more!
Connie

 

[Joyciemc]

Great start!
I feel like I'm sitting on that plane stressing out with you... hurry up and get to Florida so I can relax