Well, I'm on laundry load No. 5,
but we are completely unpacked. Still have to put the luggage away. And my daughter took her longest nap in a week - 2 1/2 hours. We already miss the Magic. It was really a great vacation.
I promise you plenty of photos. Also, I kept every navigator and got copies of the menus. (I think many are the same I've seen before, but there may have been some changes.) I tried to keep copies of most everything we got, so if you have questions about something on the boat (anything from drycleaning or spa costs to workout schedules - not that we did ANY workouts) I might have copies of the forms. I'm happy to look to see if I have the answer - at least for our cruise. Please don't hesitate to ask questions.
First, let me backtrack a bit to before the trip:
So about a week and a half before the big day arrived, my DD comes into my room in the middle of the night making a very odd sound.
“Mommy, I have a bark,” she said just before she actually barked, at least it sounded just like a bark.
When she went to bed, she was fine. So this was a little odd. I couldn’t sleep after about 6 a.m., so I got up and called the doctor’s office around 7 a.m. (we have a 24-hour pediatrician – very nice perk to being patients there) The doctor could see her around 7:30 a.m. I brought with me all of her asthma medicine, since I had some older medication because she rarely had a coughing fit anymore. I wanted the doctor to tell me what was still good, so I could toss out the old stuff and also so I could pack it in case she started coughing on the trip.
But it wasn’t asthma. It was the croop. Am I spelling that right? My husband was planning to return to town that afternoon, so I called him and told him what was going on. I got my daughter some medicine for the croop and began to worry that this was the beginning of her getting really sick.
Turns out I was wrong. She didn’t get really sick, just a normal cold.
Here's our princess before we left for the trip
But my husband got home just in time to catch her little cold. His cough didn’t sound like a bark, thankfully, but he was sick over the weekend. I figured I was definitely going to get sick – I just hoped it was sooner rather than later. The cruise was one week away.
On Wednesday, I started getting sick. Darn it. I knew I had time to get over it, but when I get a cold, I sometimes get one of those nagging coughs that lasts for two weeks or more. It’s gone during the day for the most part, but starts up in the middle of the night and makes it hard for me to sleep. I was so worried I was going to get that.
I worked Wednesday and then most of the day Thursday, but headed home early Thursday afternoon. I tried to rest, while I finished up some work from home. I went to bed early, took tons of vitamin C and tried every other medication known to mankind, or at least it felt like it.
Friday, I stayed home. My husband took my daughter to school and I slept in a little. I did the rest of my work from home, and we continued the packing.
I tried to move most of what we would need into a spare bedroom the weeks leading up to the trip. But we still had more to move in to there, and then of course put it all in suitcases, after some last minute laundry.
We packed a ton of stuff (despite all of the advice I read on the boards to not over pack.) But it could have been worse. We had four bags, including our hang-up bag and 20-bottles of water in one of the bags. We knew we’d have plenty of room to bring back most of the stuff we’d buy.
We finished packing that night and went to bed a little early. We wanted to get up around 6 a.m. and get on the road by about 6:45 a.m. My husband agreed with what I read on the boards about getting there as early as possible. So we wanted to get to the port around 10 a.m., if possible. We live 2 ½ hours away away, but with a 3-year-old old, there would be at least one potty break. Plus, we needed to make a breakfast stop. I think ended up with a second potty stop.
Before we got to bed, we had our last bit of drama.
We heard crying coming from our DD’s room. She was supposed to be asleep, but she had been up playing. Somehow she stuck the antenna from her stereo/cd player in her mouth and it ripped the inside of her cheek. Ouch. She was bleeding a little and very upset. I, of course, worried this was the start of a crazy trip. But she went to bed shortly after. I still never figured out why she put the antenna in her mouth in the first place and how it cut her.
I woke up before the alarm went off that morning – which is unheard of. But I was the kind of kid who on Christmas Eve stayed up ALL NIGHT LONG. So I figured the fact that I slept at all was a plus. But considering I was getting over my cold, I knew I had to get my rest.
We sang Happy Birthday to DH and I told DD we were going on a special trip for Daddy’s Birthday
and we got dressed and on the road. (I felt much better, and never got the nagging cough.)
So after a McDonald’s stop, we were on the road.
We arrived at the port at 9:47 a.m – give or take a few minutes
Here was our view as we got to the port
We had to wait until about 10:00, I think, before they would let the cars in. My husband dropped me and DD off with the luggage and I almost forgot to give the porter the money in my pocket. I was petrified of this, because I was afraid they would “lose” our luggage. But I remembered, and we went inside.
DD was very excited when she saw the “Mickey Boat.” Remember, she didn’t know what we were going to do, she just knew we were going on a trip. We went inside, got through security no problem went in to check in. Somehow, even though we were the fourth car in, we got a boarding pass No. 3. We saw a lot of buses pulling up as we came in, so I guess a lot of people got in while the cars were checking in. No big deal, from all of my reading, I knew it would all go fast.
When my husband came in, he laughed at me when he realized I forgot to check DD into the Club. Not sure how I forgot that, but I had a lot on my mind. It was still a pretty short line, maybe five people ahead of us. So we went ahead and got that done. My DD wasn’t thrilled to be wearing the band, but we told her it was beautiful and she could wear it all week. She seemed to buy it, and rarely mentioned the band again.
While we waited, DD snacked on goldfish and watched television (though the channels had a lot of static.) She didn’t seem to care. And then she saw Minnie.
Later, Mickey came out.
Finally, 11:45 a.m. rolled around and they were boarding people. At that point, DD and I were in the restroom. When we came out, DH said they had already called No. 1 and No. 2. YEAH, it was almost our turn.
Sometime just before noon, we walked through the ears and on to the boat. Now I do have to tell you that our DD never realized we got on to the boat. For the next three days, she asked when we were going on Mickey’s Boat. My husband tried and tried to explain, but she couldn’t see the bottom of the boat, so she didn’t believe it. She believed we were in a hotel (or as she calls them, Showl ‘n tell) for days.
UP NEXT: DAY ONE ABOARD THE MAGIC
AND COMING UP: OUR DD FINALLY BELIEVES WE’RE ON THE MICKEY BOAT, SHE ALSO PROVIDES ME WITH ONE OF MY MOST MORTIFYING MOMENTS (You know, children say the darnedest things.)WE MAKE NEW FRIENDS, A FORGOTTEN BIRTHDAY? AND MUCH MORE.
Can't wait to hear more. We are on the 2/28 Eastern with St. Croix, so I'm very interested in what you thought of that port. 
We had a wonderful time and the people on the island were great. I know they had some bad reviews previously, but we have nothing but good things to say - that might be because we spent most of our time on the island in the water. I'll be interested to hear what others had to say about it too.
Anxious to see how your 3 yr. old liked the club.
