Do you know where the kids are? Our first cruise with teenagers. Magic Feb, 2014

[veggiemama]

Hello and welcome to my TR about our first ever cruise. I attempted to get a PTR done but never managed to quite finish it. I promise I WILL get this TR done this time!!

First a little about us:
There's me: Laura the mom and the planner.
My husband John. The hardworking, definitely needs a break hubby.
Daughter: Bethany. She is 16 now and was looking forward to more freedom on the trip than on other holidays
Son: John. Yes, he has the same name as his dad He is actually the 5th generation named John. Family gatherings are fun with all the John's!



Please excuse the large sized pictures. I only know one way to make them smaller and it takes forever! So the pictures will have to stay big.


Cruise Details:

We sailed on The Magic


Stayed in room: 6546 - which was great - had no issues with the room.


We did a 4 night cruise.


As a first cruise we had many first and lots of fun. I think we lucked out with weather and ended up with a great first time experience.

So that would be the quick version.... stayed tuned for the day by day fun.

 

[veggiemama]

Day 1 - Feb 1 - Travel day

So the original plan was:
Leisurely morning at home. Finish packing. Head to airport at 12:30. Takes an hour to drive. Go through security and then take first flight to Toronto, have a quick 1 hour 20 minute layover and then get on the flight to Orlando. Arrive in Orlando at 11:30pm. Call for our shuttle to the Sheraton Suites at the airport and crash into bed.

2 days before.....

My mom and I were talking (she and my dad were heading to Florida for 2 weeks and leaving the day after us) and she tells me that in Toronto we have to go through customs and security again. That we have to get off the flight, get our bags and go through all the lines again. Yikes! I had no idea and started stressing about having enough time to still catch our plane. (side note - why do they book these connecting flights with so little time in between???)
Talked to DH about this and he is positive we don't have to do this Now he usually only travels through Canada and the last couple times we have gone to Florida we have managed to have direct flights so I had no idea. So granted, I was worried. I have never flown through Toronto, don't know the airport at all and I find it very stressful when I have no idea where to go or what to do in busy airports. My DH on the other hand keeps telling me 'we will deal with it when we need to deal with it' ARG! This is not the way to alleviate my stress level!

1 day before.....
We get online to do our check in for the flight. I had booked the flight for myself and the kids through air miles and DH booked through his company account. He goes online to check in... no problem. I go online to check in..... it can't find my reservation!!! Panic sets in! I tried multiple times to find the reservation with no luck. Finally I called air miles and low and behold - I had used the wrong reservation number! Got through check in and on the last page this BIG warning comes up on my screen..... Major snowstorm heading for Toronto on Saturday - 15-25 cm snow expected! now what?? Of course, I get kind of stressed again and of course my DH reply is "deal with it when we need to deal with it' LOL
That day - we finished cleaning up the house, packed up myself and my kids. DH was packing the next day as he was very busy at work and working long hours trying to get everything done.
Went to bed, still worried about the weather and hoping and praying that it wouldn't delay us too badly!


Up next..... How our travel day went....

 

[renesmom]

Can't wait to read the rest of your trip report. I will be traveling with two teenagers in 3 weeks. First ever cruise!

 

[veggiemama]

Can't wait to read the rest of your trip report. I will be traveling with two teenagers in 3 weeks. First ever cruise!

and welcome!

So excited for you - there was a lot of excitement leading up to our trip - and most of it good! lol

What ship are you going on? How many days? I'm envious - kind of wish we were looking forward to another warm climate trip - it's so very cold here again and we just got dumped once again with 10cm of snow Really ready from spring and warm weather.

I will try to get as much done in the next couple weeks as possible for you

 

[veggiemama]

Day 1, February 1 - Travel day

So here is how our actual travel day went....


We got up at about 7am (we are early risers so this was sleeping in for us!) I made breakfast for everyone and DH and I coffee. Just as we were finishing coffee and going over the plan for the day the phone rings. Normally I don't answer the phone when it comes up as 'unavailable' because I hate getting spam calls but so glad I answered this one...

There is this sweet lady on the phone telling me that Westjet can not fly through Toronto today because of the weather. My first initial reaction She then goes on to ask me
"can you leave a couple hours earlier?"
Me: yes.....
"We can get you on a direct flight to Orlando but it leaves 2 hours earlier than your original flight
Me: around the kitchen by now.
I very quickly asked her about my DH flight since he was booked under a different name and she only had myself and the kids listed.
And with a little We managed to get all 4 of us on a direct flight!!! BUT now this meant we had 2 hours less at home.

It was around 9am and we would have to leave no later than 10:30 am to get to the airport and park and get through all lines and customs in time!

DH goes off to pack, I put the kids on clean up duty. And I got the dog packed up to bring to my sister's. He was staying with her for the week.



Thank goodness I am an organized person and everyone was willing to jump in to help.
We got out the door right on time


And happily said goodbye to the all the snow!


Drove to the airpark, parked the car and got the shuttle to airport - happily leaving our big winter jackets in the car!

I was surprised that the line ups at the airport were not long at all so we got through very quickly and ended up with an hour to spare. so we just relaxed for that time





Finally it was time to board
It was an uneventful flight. My son enjoyed this flight so much more than previous times (he had issues with motion sickness but I think the later day flight and being able to eat before hand really helped)



I on the other hand, you can see me already starting to look a little pale. I don't do so well on flights but I managed this time.

My son enjoyed watching the sunset


And before you know it, we landed in Orlando.

Continued in next post....

 

[veggiemama]

Day 1 - Travel Day, continued

So I'm not sure why, but I took no photos in the Orlando airport.I know we were all happy to be somewhere warm and we landed just after 8pm (instead of the original 11:30pm)
We collected our bags and then went to were all the taxis and shuttles are located.

Now, I had already talked to our hotel the week before so I knew we had to call them to get them to send the shuttle. I had told my DH this and reminded him again once we landed. Don't know if he was confused, tired or just not listening but he wandered up and down that area looking for our shuttle.I reminded him about calling, which he ignored and then started getting frustrated because all the shuttles were arriving but not ours!
Again I reminded him to call. Which he finally did but could not get through. After about 15 minutes of this, I got frustrated and went to find a phone.
Anyone know where to find a pay phone at the airport??? Well, I sure didn't and never did locate one. Very frustrating! To make calls on my phone it is international so the cost is outrageous! BUT now I was just plain mad and tired and wanted to get to our hotel, so I called. AND got through right away, took 30 seconds and they told me they were on there way and that they would pick us up at.... can't remember the number but anyways.

I went back out and told my DH. He was not really happy that I called but I just ignored it because I really didn't care anymore

Shuttle came, we grabbed our bags and headed out.
So glad we booked the hotel at the airport, it was so nice to not have to travel far that night and by getting in earlier we had time to just relax.
We got our room, walked around a bit



and got some dinner.
Then we grabbed our swimsuits and went swimming. It was about 10pm by now, but we didn't care - we're Canadian!! To us the water was warm, the outdoors was warm and we were enjoying it fully! Even better - we had the pool to ourselves.




We swam till about 11 pm and then went back to the room to sleep.

Up next.... Our day on Cocoa beach......

 

[maggonz9]

i'm enjoying your trip report so far! Thanks for sharing! I love TR with pictures...it's okay if they are not small!

 

[ilovedevin]

WOW so glad to see you were given a direct flight for all of you, what a great beginning.

 

[veggiemama]

i'm enjoying your trip report so far! Thanks for sharing! I love TR with pictures...it's okay if they are not small!

Thank you And glad you like the pictures - I have lots to share! The hardest part is deciding which ones - I think I have almost 1500 pictures from this trip.

WOW so glad to see you were given a direct flight for all of you, what a great beginning.

Yes -It was such a nice surprise and a great way to kick off our holiday. It set us up for lots of fun and quite a number of surprises along the way.

 

[renesmom]

and welcome! So excited for you - there was a lot of excitement leading up to our trip - and most of it good! lol What ship are you going on? How many days? I'm envious - kind of wish we were looking forward to another warm climate trip - it's so very cold here again and we just got dumped once again with 10cm of snow Really ready from spring and warm weather. I will try to get as much done in the next couple weeks as possible for you

We are going on the Dream - 3 nights.

Sorry to hear about the weather there. I am in Arizona, it will be 90 degrees (32.2 Celsius) here tomorrow!

 

[veggiemama]

We are going on the Dream - 3 nights.

Sorry to hear about the weather there. I am in Arizona, it will be 90 degrees (32.2 Celsius) here tomorrow!

I've heard lots of great things about dream. It's on my someday list

Love your weather temp - put a "-" minus in front of it and then you have our weather brrrr! lol

Somedays - actually most days right now - we really wonder why we live here. If it wasn't for our careers we would probably move.

Oh well, it just means that when we do head south the warm weather feels that much better!

I have to say though that the warm weather this year was even nicer. I forgot to mention that the weekend before we left there was a gasoline explosion outside of our town (no one was hurt) that left us without heat for 4 days. AND there was a blizzard, AND the temps went to -45 Celsius (-49 far) . We managed with small heaters and using the oven to keep the house somewhat warmish. When we got up in the morning it was 9 degrees (48Far) in our house! Thankfully we did not freeze any pipes and other than wearing a lot of extra layers we managed. BUT it sure did make the next weekend warm weather feel that much better!

 

[veggiemama]

Day 2 - February 2, Cocoa Beach

The next morning we go up around 7 am. Not bad for us! We got breakfast at the hotel, which was ok for everyone but me. DH and kids eat anything and everything. I, on the other hand, have food allergies. I can not eat dairy or eggs and I don't eat meat either. This means I eat a vegan diet which most of the time is not an issue but occasionally leaves me with out a lot of choices when we are away. Breakfast at the hotel was one of them. DH and kids had the buffet which had all kinds of choices for them. The only thing I could order was oatmeal, which I had to request be made with boiling in milk or using butter. In the end it took almost 30 minutes for them to bring me my food!!By then the kids were done and went back to the room and DH sat with me while I ate. Though I'm pretty sure there was still milk in the oatmeal. Thank goodness my allergy is no longer requiring an epipen! I ate some, but not all, and did have some issues later in the day (not sure if it was because of breakfast but who knows)

Once we were done breakfast DH and I went for a walk around a lake that was just outside the hotel.




We still had about an hour till our shuttle was due to arrive so we went back to the room, packed up and then headed to the lobby to wait.



Me getting organized


Just after 11am our shuttle arrived. The driver came out and told us to get on board. My DH wanted to confirm with him that this was the shuttle we were suppose to be on. the driver looked almost confused about this but went and got his papers and yes, he had our papers that said we were to be on this shuttle.

So we got on board and the driver now looks really confused. I guess he started looking at his papers and noticed he had more people on board than he was suppose to??? So he gets on the shuttle and asks everyone, if they are suppose to be on the cocoa beach shuttle, everyone says yes. OK, so now he gets on the phone to try to figure things out. On top of this, someone left there purse and passport on the shuttle so we had to go back to the airport to drop it off. So off we go to the airport and I notice other people chatting and looking at the documents. Low and behold, when we got to the airport, driver again asks if we are all suppose to be on the Cocoa Beach shuttle. Apparently we had 8 people on board who were not suppose to be! All of a sudden - 6 people, looking a little sheepish say that no, they are suppose to be on another shuttle line. When Cocoa beach shuttle showed up at their hotel they just jumped on, didn't even look at the name. AND the driver never confirmed. (odd!) After a few more minutes another 2 ladies discovered that they should not be on this shuttle either! So they all got off at the airport and went to call the shuttle companies to now come and pick them up at the airport instead of the hotel.

We got everyone settle onto the shuttle. Everyone confirmed that YES this was the shuttle they should be on and off we went to Cocoa Beech. The driver was quite put out that people would just get on a shuttle without even checking the name and making sure it was the right one, but I have to say, I thought it pretty odd that the driver wouldn't confirm as people were boarding.

After that the drive was pretty uneventful. We dropped a family off at Carnival Cruise line and managed to get a glimpse of...



Can't remember which ship this was - I think Dream?
Very exciting for us to see our first glimpse of the cruise line and the port.We then dropped off a couple at their condo and then we got dropped off at our hotel.

We hadn't even checked in yet but saw "hold an alligator" and how could we pass that up? LOL DH was very excited for this and was a little impatient with me as I was trying to get my bearings and get money out.
The kids both got to hold....





Then we finally went in, got checked in and we got asked the magic question...

Would you like an upgrade?

Um Yes!!!

Ended up with a very nice room that had a bed for everyone so no one had to sleep on the floor



UP next - we finally make it the beach and the kids get to see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time!

 

[jenseib]

Joining in! Sounds like a pretty good start.
I am glad the air worked out for you and you got in sooner!

 

[Madzac]

Enjoying your report so far! Your DH sounds just like mine... he isnt a planner and none of the what ifs stress him in the least! Me on the other hand, ugh!!! What great customer service for your airline, I am really impressed!!!

We took our first cruise on the Dream last summer and had a blast. We are doing the Magic next year (totally got hooked) and I cant wait to hear all about your experience!!!

 

[rkmemkc]

We are sailing on our first cruise on the Fantasy in 122 days!! I have subscribed to your post!
Awaiting your next installment.
Thank you!!

 

[veggiemama]

Joining in! Sounds like a pretty good start.
I am glad the air worked out for you and you got in sooner!

Hi! and welcome, glad you can join in. It was a very nice start to our holiday. And getting in sooner meant more time in the pool which is always ok with us!

Enjoying your report so far! Your DH sounds just like mine... he isnt a planner and none of the what ifs stress him in the least! Me on the other hand, ugh!!! What great customer service for your airline, I am really impressed!!!

We took our first cruise on the Dream last summer and had a blast. We are doing the Magic next year (totally got hooked) and I cant wait to hear all about your experience!!!

Thank you! glad you are enjoying so far. Gotta love the no stress hubby's. I think in the end it is a good thing - both of us stressed is never fun (you'll see/hear all about that later on! lol) Yes, we love our airline. So far we have never had issues or at least had things figured out very quickly if there has been issues (again, you'll see/hear about that later!)

We are sailing on our first cruise on the Fantasy in 122 days!! I have subscribed to your post!
Awaiting your next installment.
Thank you!!

So exited -you get your very first cruise soon! The excitement leading up to the cruise is so much fun. And getting the cruise mail was always a highlight for me Should have another post up soon - probably tomorrow as it is a busy teaching day/night for me today.

 

[Brisbanemum]

Great trip report so far! Can't wait to read the next installment in your family adventure

 

[veggiemama]

Great trip report so far! Can't wait to read the next installment in your family adventure

Hi and welcome! Glad you are enjoying my report. Stay tuned, working on my next update right now

 

[veggiemama]

Day 2 - Cocoa Beach, continued....

Once we had dropped off our bags we headed straight for the beach. We live in Manitoba, which is the heart of the prairies so the kids have not really seen much of the ocean before. Bethany saw it as she flew over on her Europe trip with her class last year and my son John saw it last when he was a baby!
We started off by walking down the beach, of course we took off our shoes almost as soon as we hit sand!






Selfie of me and hubby


We walked along, and for son John he was very impressed with undertow and feeling the sand disappearing underneath him.
As we walked along Bethany discovered that many shells had tiny holes in them which gave her a great idea - she is my creative one and has recently gotten into making jewellery. So she decided, wouldn't it be great to collect a whole bunch of shells and make necklaces out of them for her friends and family.



Even son John got into the act, and eventually we were all searching for just the right size shells - found some really neat ones to I have to say.

We were also enjoying all the birds. DH had to take photos of these birds that would just let the water carry them away. And we had a good laugh at the ones who run away from the water.



Eventually we made it to the pier and took a quick walk along there and took a few photos.





Then a quick stop for ice cream for the kids.

After that we walked back to the hotel and grabbed a quick bite at the hotel restaurant. Nothing special but it was nice for me who was able to get a fire baked pizza with lots of veggies and no cheese. And it was nice an big so I had leftovers for later.

We decided that we should get changed into bathing suits and since it was certainly hot enough (for us!) we should go and swim in the ocean. The kids have never swam in the Atlantic ocean before so this would be a great first for them.
DH has seen the ocean and been to Vancouver many times for business but has never swam in the ocean. I grew up in BC so I have swam in the ocean many times but it was fun to watch everyone do this for the first time.

I have no pictures of this but we sure did have fun. DH was a little disconcerted at first about the undertow and the power of the waves but he got into after a while and my son and I had a blast jumping through waves - he even was jumping over them Bethany did not go out too far - she does not like water too much and though she can swim fine she prefers shallow water. She did not go out as far as us but she did stay out for awhile. She decided to sunbathe for awhile and leave it to her to meet some boys. Though she assures me they were not hitting on her! She is just so friendly and makes friends with everyone.

Once we were done swimming it was time for dinner. We didn't want to eat at the hotel again so we asked them where we should go that was within walking distance. We ended up going here



We were quite happy with this choice. We like to explore new restaurants so this was a lot of fun for us. Just a fun place, not to large but very friendly.
I was able to get a eggplant parmesan and gluten free pasta, yay!


John ordered a calzone - he loves pizza so we figured he would like this. We were shocked at the size of it though



Can you see how unsure he was about this? LOL poor guy, I think he was almost embarrassed about it. We thought it was so funny and so did our neighbours at the next table and John does not like to be teased - he does not take it very well but he was a good sport about it and managed to eat some of it. I think he ate all of about a ¼ of it before he was full though. We packed it up and took it back to our room for him to munch on later if he wanted.

Once were done dinner, we headed back to our room so that I could re organize our stuff again LOL and then we just relaxed until we were ready to sleep. It was our last night for free wifi so the kids took full advantage of being online that night.


Up next - We finally get to embark on Magic!

 

[dededisney]

Just joined and love to hear how your teens liked the trip. We are going next month with a 15 and 11 1/2 year old (they both have been on DCL, but not for quite a few years. It will be interesting to see how different it is with older kids. Can't wait to hear more!