Since Ryan was in charge of the ICU for the month of December, he suggested I find something to do for the Holidays since he wasn't going to be around much. I heard about Disney Christmas Cruises sailing from Galveston, which is 45 minutes from me, and decided to book one. I got my mom to come along for the adventure!
I was extremely nervous about getting on a cruise ship, especially with Mason's food allergies, but it actually turned out to be so much fun. And as usual (and as Ryan says ):
Disney does it right.
It was very relaxed and low key as far as a Disney vacation goes.
The characters were everywhere. My mom even got to ride in the elevator a few times with them as they were making their way to where they needed to be on the boat.
The fun part about it being a Christmas cruise was the varying outfits the characters had. They had tropical christmas outfits, christmas sweaters and scarfs, cruise outfits, and even pirate outfits for Pirate Night.
The lobby's christmas decorations were gorgeous, and our first night aboard they had a tree lighting ceremony to get the season started! There was even a life sized gingerbread house onboard.
There was a "deck the deck" (think deck the halls) holiday party on our first morning at sea, which the boys loved. The characters came out and taught the kids a new dance called the Yuletide Slide, and Pluto and Goofy had a hula hooping contest, which quite frankly I was impressed by. Can you imagine hula hooping in one of those costumes??
There were lots of fun activities planned each day (such as our vegetable car race that you can read about here ), and the kids can go to the kids club and hang out, leaving the adults some time to go and relax without them, but since Mason wasn't old enough I never even bothered sending Aidan. When we go again and Ryan is with me, we can send the kids to the Kids Club and then go take part in the adults only activities onboard such as wine tastings and trivia, etc etc.
There were 3 ports of call during our 7 night voyage. Key West, Castaway Cay (Disney's own private island), and Nassau.
We got off the boat in Key West but quickly got back onboard. I didn't want to go shopping and we didn't want to spend tons of money on excursions either so we decided to walk around and sight see (oh and ever since I tried Key Lime Wine at the food and wine festival at epcot I knew I had to find a bottle, and we did!). We didn't have a stroller and the boys were miserable and Mason wanted to be held so we got back on the ship and took advantage of the empty pools!
We did have some ice cream while we were there and on our way off the boat Aidan met our ship's captain.
Castaway Cay was my favorite port of call, and I even did the Castaway Cay 5K that they organized for that morning!
There were 2 downsides to this race.
1- It was in the friggin bahamas, it was HOT!!
2- I read on multiple blogs that there would be a bag drop at the race so they suggested you bring all your stuff for the beach for the day with you so you wouldn't have to go back to the ship.
There was no bag drop.
This meant I had to run my 5k with my backpack loaded with my things for the day. If I had known there was no bag drop I would have left my stuff with my Mom and the boys who were eating breakfast on the ship while I went to the island early for my run. Grrrr.
We had an amazingly relaxing day. Mom got the boys some sand castle molds/buckets which they thoroughly enjoyed, and we drank Mai Tai's in beach chairs. For lunch there was a bahamian themed buffet/BBQ prepared for us. It was all so fun!!
Next time I want to get in on some of the excursions offered though!
Our final port of call was Nassau and even our itinerary for the day mentioned how the area is getting more dangerous and stated that you should stay well within the immediate downtown area right off the ship….so we passed on this port. We stayed safely on the ship and spent the entire day hanging in the pool.
The way dining worked was pretty cool. We rotated between the ship's 3 sit-down restaurants each night but our server and assistant server remained with us. We had a formal night, a semi formal night and even a pirate themed night.
We got TONS of free stuff from the Disney Vacation Club guides on board. Each day we had a new surprise waiting for us at their kiosk. We ended up with hats, backpacks, ID lanyards, 2 sets of DVC pins for our lanyards (and they gave me 2 pins each time instead of the 1 pin allotted per family since I had Aidan and Mason with me), and we even got a christmas ornament!
The ID lanyards came in super handy because you can't use cash or credit cards on the ship. If you want to buy anything you have to swipe your room key and it gets charged to your room. Then the night before you dock back home you go to the front desk and pay it off with your credit card.
It took Mom and I a day or two to fully understand this because it works differently than when you add a credit card to your room key at the parks. On the ship you HAVE to, you have no other choice. The shops and bars and such don't even have credit card machines to run your cards. At first we couldn't understand why we couldn't pay for our purchases with a credit card, but after 2 nice cast members explained it to us fully we finally understood.
All in all, it was super relaxed and I spent my days unshowered (at least until it was time for dinner), wearing a hat, with no makeup on. You will never find me doing that at the parks. Ever. It was just so relaxing and you see the same families and faces everyday, and you just realize you have nobody to impress. All the families are there to relax and have fun. It's kinda like when you have a friend that you just don't feel the need to get out of your pajamas for (ahem, Brittany this am when she called to say she was stopping over for a quick visit and I was still rocking my jammies)…..
Anyway if you've ever toyed with the idea of taking a Disney Cruise, DO IT!! Even my mom says if she ever does a cruise again she'll do Disney.....and she doesn't even have little kids anymore, lol.
I would also like to say that anyone who tells you that you can't tell you're on a boat is a freaking liar. We felt that boat rocking and rolling each day. I would wake up in the morning and literally fall out of bed. I did NOT have sea legs. Oh and I felt like I was still on a boat for days after we got off!!!! However there was only one night where it was so bad I was in panic attack mode (irrationally convinced the boat was gonna tip over…and yes I said irrationally..I know it's a stupid thought to have) and couldn't even sit through our after dinner show. Mom couldn't either. the only thing that calmed me was laying down, so we all climbed into bed at like 9pm that night and went to bed.
If you get a chance I recommend getting Scopolamine sea sick patches for behind your ear. Mom and I both used them and neither of us got sick (though they made the spot behind my ear itch like crazy!!). Granted neither of us have a history of motion sickness, but better safe than sorry. Also, don't wait unit you're sick to use them, by then it's too late. Use those bitches preemptively!!
To end, I'll leave you with some more photos!
Just chillin
Our server Eljoy did magic tricks for Aidan each night, but only if he finished his dinner!
Gigantic Gingerbread House…Mason asked if he could eat it…….
The Duffy's got some new cruise gear and Grandma Di got the boys Chip and Dale!
Chip and Dale went everywhere with us, and they even got to sample some of the tasty cruise food!
One of the boys favorite things to do was to look out the window and check out the white foam the boat was making in the water. We could actually tell how fast or slow we were moving by it. We could then correlate it with the in-room TV channel that showed all the ships details: wind speed, speed of the boat, ship's time (it changed a few times as we traveled) and actual Latitude and Longitude of the ship.
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