That One Time We Cruised, part 1: It Could Have Gone Poorly

Soooo . . . We went on a family vacation . . . six months ago. And I wrote down all these notes for an exceedingly witty, delightful blog post. Which I then proceeded not to write. And now I’ve forgotten what half of my notes meant, so I won’t be nearly as entertaining now as I would have been then. But better late than never?

And with that enthusiastic intro (drum roll please), let me tell you about That One Time We Cruised!

It turns out we took very, very few pics on this trip, so
mostly you'll just have to imagine for yourselves.

For our tenth anniversary, Brice decided to surprise me with a family Disney cruise! We would be gone about a week, sailing out of Florida, with a day at the end to hang out in Florida (we went to the Kennedy Space Center; more on that later).

As soon as we told anyone that we were going on this vacation, the immediate reaction was, “Oh, that’s so great! You will love it sooo much! Disney is the best!” Add to that the fact that it was a tenth anniversary gift, and I was beginning to feel all sorts of internal pressure for this to be the “best vacation ever!” But, honestly, I’ve never been a beach bum/swimsuit type, so I was starting to feel a little nervous. Oh, and the Friday before we left, I found out I was pregnant.

 

So that’s how things started, and day #1 did nothing to assuage my nervousness. There were People. People. Everywhere. Ugh. So many people. And so much pageantry. And the cast-off party was loud and also full of people. And lip-syching dancing. And that song where the guy pronounces “dynamite” as “dino-mite.” And did I mention all the people?!? And then we went to investigate the kids’ clubs on board, where Coriel and Addra would be spending lots of their time, and all I could see was that there were screens and movies everywhere. And I thought, “Why am I paying all this money for them to go on a cruise and have this awesome cruise experience if all they’re gonna do is sit around and watch movies? We could do that at home!”

Brice and I dropped the girls off at the kids’ club for a little while (they were very excited) and headed back to our room to sit around and relax for a few minutes (we had Koa with us, so yes, we were just sitting around and sort of relaxing at least), and finally it was all too much. I turned to Brice and said, “I really need some permission from you to hate this vacation.” And I cried ridiculously over it. Of course he said that was fine, because he’s awesome that way, and I took a deep breath. We picked up the kids, had dinner, and the first day was pretty much over.

Oh, did I also mention that of all of us, I’m the only one who could feel the roll of the ocean? It’s not like I felt terribly seasick, just that my head felt like it was on a very slow spin cycle. I couldn’t decide if it was the pregnancy plus being at sea, or if it was just the being at sea. But whatever it was, it just added to the really good times of the first day.

But don’t worry, it gets better from here on out.