Brilliance and Disney and Babies, OH MY!!!

[ilovecraigandcooper]

THE ALL ABOUT US and other things you probably don't care about..

Where to start...I guess I'll introduce everyone first:
(from left to right, Hadley, Bec, mom, Cooper, me, Craig and Joann).

Me! Your author, avid trip report reader and resident travel planner for the family. I'm 34 and in addition to my full time job I work a little side gig JUST to pad my vacay fund.

Craig: my hubby of 15 years. He enjoys traveling like a normal human being but not on the same level as I do, however he's a good sport and plays along.

Cooper: my sweetie, sensitive, handsome 8 year old.

Hadley: the now 7 month old who stole our heart and completed our family!

Lorri: my mom, whom I adore. She's always up for going anywhere and we usually always travel together.

Joann: my mother in law who would be content to never go anywhere (and didn't until She met me) but we drag her along with us and she endures it, ha.

Bec: my sister, 24 and getting married in less than a month! Always up for going!!! (Her fiancé, not so much but don't worry we'll eventually break him, ha).

That's our family besides my dad and he hates traveling with all of his heart. We always ask him to go and sometimes he appeases us and sometimes not. Mom has learned after 35 years of marriage that things are happier if she doesn't make him go but that doesn't mean that she has to miss out so she flies solo on many trips.

We also Stephanie and Vanessa, a mother/daughter duo who are family friends and Kathy and Rob, Craig's aunt and uncle.

We usually travel in big packs...people find out we're going and want to sign up...apparently we're fun people, hahah.

This trip is a 5 night Caribbean cruise and 3 nights at Disney. (We're currently still at Disney at the moment. Today we're resting until this afternoon so I thought it would be a great time to start).

 

[ilovecraigandcooper]

A little backstory and how this trip came to be. Cruising is my absolute favorite thing ever and anytime I get any extra money I consider it cruise fund!!! Last Christmas I got some money from various things and I decided a cruise was long overdue.

We've previously done
-Majesty of the seas Bahamas (honeymoon cruise)
-Sovereign of the seas, Bahamas
-Mariner of the seas, eastern Caribbean
-Disney wonder, Bahamas (coops first cruise)
-Enchantment of the seas (Canada/New England)
-Monarch of the seas
-Disney Dream (Bahamas)
-Brilliance of the seas (Caribbean) (current trip report)
-Explorer of the seas (booked next year for Alaska)

We booked the cruise last December so we had a long countdown. I was pregnant when we booked so we had to wait for Hads to get to 6 months (youngest you can cruise). We embarked when she was 6 months and 28 days, lol).

When I saw that the cruise came back on a Thursday I immediately thought "pfft there's three more vacay days I can fit into that week" and I booked disney!!!

For the cruise we did an inside room and for disney we did a family suite at Art of Animation. We actually just did 2 day hoppers, planning to go to disney springs Thursday (the day we get off the cruise). I feel like this is really awkward writing since part of the trip is in the past, part is in the future and part is happening right now, hahaha. It's like I never know what tense to use, lol.

More random things you need to know (but again don't care about):

-I've been wanting a van for awhile and I was really set on getting one before vacay so we could all ride together. I found the one and we bought it Wednesday (we were leaving Friday) so this just affirms what kind of procrastinators we really are, ha. (In case you're wondering, a 2013 Toyota Sienna has a RIDICULOUS amount of cargo room!!! We had suitcases for all 7 people who are not light packers, plus all our baby paraphernalia, including our huge stroller and we still had room to spare)!!! And the 7 of us were super comfy the whole ride down.

-my husband loves going to school. He's always enrolled in something. He has multiple degrees and diplomas but is obsessed with learning (this comes into play later)

-I ended up having a hysterectomy a month before we left...they did it robotically and believe me, when it was determined that I needed one my first question was WILL I BE ABLE TO ENJOY MY VACATION because if not I was putting it off until after but my dr assured me I'd be 100% by then and he was right besides the exhaustion factor.

-I never pack until the last minute. I try to be organized but I'm just not. Sometimes I feel like I fail at life. Hahaha

 

[ilovecraigandcooper]

Our schedule of events:

Friday: leave around lunch for Tampa. Reservations at the Tahitiian Inn.

Saturday: Cruise day!!!!

Sunday: Key West

Monday: day at sea

Tuesday: Cozumel

Wednesday: day at sea

Thursday: drive to Disney!! Disney springs, resort hopping, T-Rex, O'hana

Friday: Rainforest cafe, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood studios

Saturday: Epcot, Be our Guest, magic kingdom

Sunday: long drive back to Georgia

 

[ilovecraigandcooper]

Travel Day!!!

Craig had to work half a day today so I slept (later than I should) and then got up and started packing I had read reports of people who had great luck packing their kids' clothes in ziplock bags by day. Bec helped me with that and the kids clothes seemed to be pretty organized. (I mean later that week I was grabbing bags out and throwing things here and there and system kind of broke down...) hahaha but it started out good!!!

We headed out a little after 12. Mapquest had our trip at 8 hours but that would be with no stops which was laughable for our party of seven, haha.

Our first stop was Joann's house, she lives around 45 minutes away. What should have been a short stop ended up taking forever (you know the regular with 7 people), shifting of things, bathroom breaks, POOP EXPLOSIONS (luckily that was just one person in our group hahah).



Then we hit Atlanta traffic . Then in the midst of all that my husband had to stop and go to the baheoom (which resulted in EVERYONE having to get out and go to the bathroom AND get snacks AND dawdle).

The rest of the drive was somewhat uneventful and we got to the hotel between 11:00-midnightish. We had reservations for a cruise and park package at the Tahitian Inn.

The only other memorable thing that happened that day is we got Arby's to eat in the car and I tried one of the new fajita things which was delicious but ridiculous to eat in the dark while driving hahaha

 

[ilovecraigandcooper]

Cruise Day 1!!!

We got up around 8ish. (Our shuttle time to the port wasn't until 12). I made a quick run to target because my husband forgot to pack any underwear...

The hotel itself was sufficient. It was older but clean and actually very quirky and eccentric. And the price was wonderful!! I really liked that we got to actually leave our car there and didn't have to move it to an offsite parking.

We all met in the lobby a little before 12. The shuttle was right on time. It probably took us 10-15 minutes to get to the port. As always I get happy feelings when I spot the ship for the first time!!! The parking and drop off was chaotic and I was super glad I wasn't having to drive and navigate. I pretty much think shuttle or taxi is def the way to go!!!

Getting through security was...well you know I feel like any port agent I've ever encountered definitely hates their job, haahahaha.

The first thing once we boarded was scout out lunch! I had the obligatory boarding day honey stung chicken!!! The first day it was hard to find a table where we could all sit and we ended up splitting and sitting just close by. The rest of the days were never a problem but between the rush of everyone wanting to eat at once and us not being familiar with the layout of the tables it was crazy!

Now I've cruised several times before and I've been in November twice before this one but I have never EVER seen a cruise with so many seniors and no kids!!! Like literally my two kids were among *maybe* 30 kids total. But the motorized scooters, wheelchairs and walkers were in ABUNDANCE, hahaha. I'm pretty sure my Hadley was the only baby under a year old. She got special attention from everyone from the dinning room to the windjammer to guest services. Everyone knew her name and if I was ever walking around without her they wanted to know where she was We were also constantly approached by older people who wanted to talk to her, play with her, etc. Luckily she's ridiculously friendly and a total ham and ate it all up!

After lunch some of our group went to the spa tour. Craig went to the room to study. Coop wanted to swim so I took him and Hads to the pool. He had the entire pool to himself....during sail away...eventually one other kid got in. There were empty pool chairs EVERYWHERE. It was feeling a little bizarre...The pool has nice wide ledges all around and it was the perfect place for the baby and me to hang out with Coop without actually being in the pool. I ordered a virgin strawberry daiquiri poolside (which was amazing) and I shared with coop and hads which I'm sure made me look like a real stand up mom, hahaha. To make it worse when we were leaving I managed to spill the rest of the drink all down the stroller and all over the baby...I'm sure the old people thought I was a drunk disaster, hahaha.

We met up with the peeps that went to the spa and found out Kathy had one a $100 gift card to the spa! Joann had also scheduled an acupuncture appointment for the next day and Bec had booked herself a top to toe massage! They're living it up while on vacay! hahaha

We registered for the kid's club (which coop adored) and begged to go to ALL THE TIME!!! He ended up going at least once every day for an hour or two but he would have gladly stayed there the entire time. I'm glad they make it so fun for the kids but I also missed my little buddy hanging out with me sometimes. Honestly this cruise was so much different than any other I've been on because Craig was mostly doing homework (at least at the beginning), coop always wanted to be in the kid's club and with the others doing spa things and pool things and other things hads couldn't do I spent a lot of time just chilling with her. We would hang out in the schooner bar in the comfy chairs a lot! It's the first cruise where I've had so much down time yet been so exhausted every minute of every day! Taking babies on vacation is no joke, yall. hahah