Grandma and Grandpa surprised the family earlier this year by offering a Disney Cruise for the whole family. Words can't describe how grateful and excited we all were. Brad had a cruise line app that was a count down to the cruise. The kids checked it every day and couldn't wait to get out there! We were so excited to make amazing memories with family.
Finally it was time to get the party started! But first, the kids had a little homework to do on the plane. :)
Karly and Olive helped entertain each other on the flight.
We landed early evening and joined the rest of the family at Jeff and Julie's new Orlando rental house. We had dinner at the water park in their community. It is such a gorgeous and fun place! We could have stayed here and been really happy, but the next morning we were on our way to the cruise port!
Right after we got on the ship, we saw Cinderella waiting up on the balcony so we went to go say hi before we began exploring the cruise ship. This was the first of many visits with Cinderella.
Each family had two state rooms that had a joining door on the inside. All of our rooms were in a row on the side of the ship so we could open up our balconies and have one big balcony where the cousins could run and play. It was definitely the best way to cruise with lots of kids and families.
After we found our rooms, we went for a walk to explore all the fun things to do and see on the ship. The kids were so excited!
Up on the top deck were a couple pools, a splash park, and the water slide. The big screen always had a Disney movie playing. The kids loved bobbing in the pools and watching the movies. It was so much fun.
The kids club area had tons of fun things to play on. Going into kids club with cousins was one of the best parts of this cruise! Too bad Karly was too young! :)
It was fun to come upon different characters as we were going throughout the ship. Sometimes there weren't a lot of people around so we got to spend some good time hanging out with them.
Every night at dinner, our large extended family all had tables near each other. It was fun to see everyone, and sometimes the kids moved around to sit with cousins. One of the highlights of this cruise for me was the servers of these meals. They would deliver all our dinner plates, then they would cut up the kids food for them so we didn't have to! Wow - now that's good service!
Aunt Julie made the cutest matching skirts for all the girls. I'm bummed we didn't get a better picture of them all together. They looked so cute!! Thank you Aunt Julie!
The Animator's Palette was one of our favorite restaurants. There were so many fun things to see. This morning's breakfast had a visit from several characters.
Kids who aren't potty trained aren't allowed in the swimming pools so it's a good thing Karly loved the splash pad! There were lots of fun things to do and play in there, and she was very happy.
Maddie was our cute little adopted daughter for the trip. We were happy to have her tag along with us as much as her mom would let her. :)
Being on the ship was so much fun. The big kids had freedom to go and do what they wanted. Our kids were either hanging out with us, and running into cousins at the pool etc. or they were in the kids club. It was fun to gather with everyone to eat, or hang out, but was also fun to see everyone having freedom to do what they felt like too.
The girls thought the little tub in our state room was so cute. They liked hanging out in their "little hot tub".
One afternoon, the kids were in the club and Karly was in the nursery so we were able to hang out in the adults only area, then go get massages. It was wonderful.
Our first port was Cozumel. Julie's family went on a dolphin excursion, but the rest of us went on a beach and buffet outing for the day. It was so fun to lounge at the beach, visiting with the adults while we watched the kids play. It was a great day!
The sit down dinners were a little tough with Karly. She's at an age where sitting in a high chair and making it through a whole meal is really hard. So we did what we could to keep her in that chair - including letting her eat the butter.... every night. So gross right? But she loved it, and I didn't have it in me to fight with her on vacation!!
Karly's other nightly meal item was the chocolate covered ice cream mickey head. She loved that treat.
We had the same two servers at our dinner each night. I can't remember where they were from, but they had pretty heavy accents. We had a lot of fun with them and they got to know our family pretty well, but spelling our names was tricky for them. Bentley thought it was really funny that they spelled his name "Blendley" on his cup one night. :)
One of the best parts of this cruise for the kids was the huge Halloween parties. They got to wear their costumes, go trick-or-treating, watch Halloween shows, and have dance parties with the characters who were also dressed up in costumes. It was a little chaotic for this introvert, but it was tons of fun.
We had a few Elsa costumes in the family! Karly loved that she matched Ella and Maddie.
The shows each night were so good!! The plays, music, characters and costumes were all the magic that you would expect with Disney. They had a variety of things we got to see, but by far the favorite was the ventriloquist. The kids were laughing hysterically at that guy and his puppets. I was thoroughly entertained just watching them.
The Aqua-Duck water slide was a ton of fun. Bentley was the biggest fan and couldn't get enough!
Another highlight of the cruise for the girls was attending the Royal Court Tea Party. It was so fun to gather the girls of the family, including grandma, to go have a tea party with the princesses. It was very fancy, and we were treated like real royalty.
Olive and Grace had sword fights with their invitations while we were waiting to go in. Obviously these two have older brothers.
As we went in they presented each of our little princesses to the room, crowned them, and then escorted us to our tables.
The table was set with beautiful tea cups, tiers of pastries, and each girl had some gifts.
There was a cute performance with singing and dancing, and then each Disney princess entered the party and went around to each table and spent some time with the girls.
I hope my girls remember this because it was definitely a special and very fun activity to do together. While the girls were at the tea party, Bentley and daddy had a great afternoon together. They did the Secret Detective Agency game twice, met lots of characters, and went on the water slide over and over again.
The next port was Jamaica. We got off the ship and wondered through all the fun tourist shops. The kids all found a treasure they couldn't live without. Everyone was anxious to get back onto the ship and go back to the pools before long though.
The Secret Detective Agency was a really fun game, not with the little ones though because the search for clues took us all over the ship. Watching the kids try to solve the mysteries and search for clues was really fun.
One night's theme was pirate night. We were looking pretty fierce in our dollar store pirate accessories! The kids thought that meeting Captain Hook was pretty cool. The other characters were dressed up as pirates too which was really fun.
Our little baby pirate wasn't too excited about dinner that night so Brad and I both took a turn walking around with her. He was fun and got the Disney photographers to get a cute shot of them.
I took the little girls back to the room to go to bed, and Brad took the big kids to the huge pirate party on deck that night. They had a show, lots of pirate games, and even some fireworks. It was one crazy party!
Because the tea party wasn't enough, we also went to another princess gathering. This time we got to meet Ariel!
Playing in the pool, lounging on the deck, eating ice cream and watching movies. It's a kid's dream come true!
The photography was awesome. We definitely took advantage of getting lots of pictures taken! Unfortunately, Olive didn't feel like cooperating on this night when we got some cute single shots of all the kids.
On the morning of our last port at Castaway Cay, we couldn't leave the ship without first meeting Elsa and Anna. Karly loved Elsa.
We spent the whole day off the boat and on Disney's island. It was an awesome day. The weather was beautiful. The water was blue and perfect, and of course, Disney had huge buffets with a lot of delicious food open to us all day. That was a huge win for sure.
Meeting Olaf on the island was perfect after spending the morning with Elsa and Anna!
There was some seriously good cousin bonding going on!
Formal night got us all dressed up in our nice outfits for more pictures! Brad and I got there kind of late because this was the afternoon of our massages so we had to hurry really fast to shower and get ready. By the time we got there the family had already done their own individual shots and a group shot. We had to wait in line for a while to get our family done, and at the last minute we pulled everyone back in for a group shot. I don't think the people in line were very happy with us! We were trying to go really fast so we just had everyone gather in around us, but now it makes for a strange looking picture. We should have just taken one more minute to put grandma and grandpa in the center instead of us. Oh well. :)
Crush the sea turtle came by our table and talked to us. He thought Karly was pretty cute and said something about her being recently hatched. :)
It was such an incredible trip. We had so much fun, deepened our relationships with family, and had a blast. We are so grateful for grandma and grandpa for making this happen. I hope one day my kids will be able to fully appreciate what an incredible opportunity this was for us.
THANK YOU grandma and grandpa Justice!
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