Cheerio
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2002
- Messages
- 683
Welcome to our trip report!
Who we are:
Mom
Leanne
Dad
Gary
Kiddos
Kevin (18),
Ryan (16),
Dylan (12.5) and
Lauren (11)
We were with our neighbors J & M and their two boys L (13) & G (12)
This will be our 4th cruise with Disney, so excited to be on board again! We had new and old friends awaiting us on board
Pre-Trip
We put down a placeholder on our last cruise in February 2016 (you can read that report here - https://www.disboards.com/threads/fantasy-western-feb-6-13-2016-feat-swdas-complete-12-31.3484719/) Check out my signature for the other links. We booked this cruise on opening day in October 2016, the benefit was 13 months to pay in full, the downfall was a huge countdown! We were looking forward to visiting St.Thomas and Castaway Cay again, it would be our first visit to Tortola - except due to the hurricane, our itinerary was changed to St.Maarten - which we didn't love last time we went there in 2014. I began researching things to do there, since we didn't want another beach day with vendors bugging us.
This would be our last family cruise for a while as our two older boys head off to post-secondary this coming fall and next year. We decided to drive down from Toronto again and because we were driving we were going to spend a week pre-cruise travelling down to and around Orlando. The trip was much needed, just before Christmas DH was in a terrible car accident which resulted in us needing to buy a brand new vehicle. We splurged on a large SUV and I was excited to have more space (more shopping for Mama...) for luggage
The days before the cruise we spent packing, sorting out animals and cleaning - vacay couldn't come fast enough.
February 4th - 9th 2018 - Travel Days
I won't bore you with all the details of our week but we drove in quite a bit of snow near Erie, PA which slowed us down, spent nights in Charlotte NC and Daytona Beach FL on the way down, three nights in Orlando, including a visit to Olive Garden and Disney Springs (no rain this year!) We spent our days by the pool, sprinkled with a bit of shopping and FE gift prep, took the kids to Cheesecake Factory, a Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant and tried out Steak and Shake. We had beautiful weather and we're so thankful for the down time we had as a family.
Our final night pre-cruise was at the Comfort Inn in Cocoa Beach. Like always, we let the kids have a quick swim, had an early dinner and then went down to the beach to watch the Dream sail out, super exciting to see it leave and make way for our ship. I did some laundry so we were getting on the ship with all clean clothes and then hung out in the hot tub making new friends. We packed up our bags and made sure we were ready to go in the morning.
Up next, that backfired, I have an angry crew. Why I'll never tell them to eat less breakfast again...
Quick Links
Embarkation Day - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-2018-our-second-swdas.3666266/#post-58858520
First Day At Sea - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-2018-our-second-swdas.3666266/#post-58879872
Second Day At Sea - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-2018-our-second-swdas.3666266/#post-58889939
St.Maarten - Catamaran Excursion https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-2018-our-second-swdas.3666266/#post-59155382
St.Thomas - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...our-second-swdas.3666266/page-2#post-59897563
Star Wars Day at Sea - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...our-second-swdas.3666266/page-2#post-60166242
Castaway Cay - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...our-second-swdas.3666266/page-2#post-60300290

Who we are:
Mom

Dad

Kiddos




We were with our neighbors J & M and their two boys L (13) & G (12)
This will be our 4th cruise with Disney, so excited to be on board again! We had new and old friends awaiting us on board

Pre-Trip
We put down a placeholder on our last cruise in February 2016 (you can read that report here - https://www.disboards.com/threads/fantasy-western-feb-6-13-2016-feat-swdas-complete-12-31.3484719/) Check out my signature for the other links. We booked this cruise on opening day in October 2016, the benefit was 13 months to pay in full, the downfall was a huge countdown! We were looking forward to visiting St.Thomas and Castaway Cay again, it would be our first visit to Tortola - except due to the hurricane, our itinerary was changed to St.Maarten - which we didn't love last time we went there in 2014. I began researching things to do there, since we didn't want another beach day with vendors bugging us.
This would be our last family cruise for a while as our two older boys head off to post-secondary this coming fall and next year. We decided to drive down from Toronto again and because we were driving we were going to spend a week pre-cruise travelling down to and around Orlando. The trip was much needed, just before Christmas DH was in a terrible car accident which resulted in us needing to buy a brand new vehicle. We splurged on a large SUV and I was excited to have more space (more shopping for Mama...) for luggage

February 4th - 9th 2018 - Travel Days
I won't bore you with all the details of our week but we drove in quite a bit of snow near Erie, PA which slowed us down, spent nights in Charlotte NC and Daytona Beach FL on the way down, three nights in Orlando, including a visit to Olive Garden and Disney Springs (no rain this year!) We spent our days by the pool, sprinkled with a bit of shopping and FE gift prep, took the kids to Cheesecake Factory, a Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant and tried out Steak and Shake. We had beautiful weather and we're so thankful for the down time we had as a family.

Our final night pre-cruise was at the Comfort Inn in Cocoa Beach. Like always, we let the kids have a quick swim, had an early dinner and then went down to the beach to watch the Dream sail out, super exciting to see it leave and make way for our ship. I did some laundry so we were getting on the ship with all clean clothes and then hung out in the hot tub making new friends. We packed up our bags and made sure we were ready to go in the morning.
Up next, that backfired, I have an angry crew. Why I'll never tell them to eat less breakfast again...

Quick Links
Embarkation Day - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-2018-our-second-swdas.3666266/#post-58858520
First Day At Sea - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-2018-our-second-swdas.3666266/#post-58879872
Second Day At Sea - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-2018-our-second-swdas.3666266/#post-58889939
St.Maarten - Catamaran Excursion https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-2018-our-second-swdas.3666266/#post-59155382
St.Thomas - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...our-second-swdas.3666266/page-2#post-59897563
Star Wars Day at Sea - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...our-second-swdas.3666266/page-2#post-60166242
Castaway Cay - https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...our-second-swdas.3666266/page-2#post-60300290
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