We surprised the girls we are going on a Disney cruise on Christmas 2014.  We were hoping to wait and just drive the girls to the airport the day of.  Part of the reason was to completely surprise them, the other reason is because we feared they would not sleep for a week leading up to the day we leave.

We could not afford to do this expensive trip plus give presents so we had to tell them about the cruise on Christmas as it was now the main (and only) part of their gift from us (they did still get a couple of Santa gifts however).  We were trying to keep the date a secret and also tried to keep it a secret that Auger’s were coming with us.  Of course the two older ones talked via text and figured out they were going together and because Auger’s told their kids the dates of the trip,  it came out to children when were going.  OK, so we were oh for two here but it’s been good.  It is the week leading up to the trip and so far I think Ella has only been up a little bit earlier than Heather but we still have a couple of mornings to go.

So now we are getting ready for our Disney Cruise.  It has been nearly a year in planning and it is finally here.  Now we have to get through these next couple of days of work and school and it’s been getting hard to concentrate.  My mind is on vacation and what needs to be bought, packed, and washed before we go.

To help me before hand, I did a lot of research (as I tend to do before most vacations). I have found a ton of information here:

http://www.disboards.com/forums/disney-cruise-line-forum.9/

These forums will give you any type of information you can find.  As of this day, they have changed the layout of the forum so it’s been hard to find the “search” button but in the past I can type about anything in there and find some sort of information all provided by the many people that have been on the ships and have a passion to post information about their travels.

We have almost finished packing.  The three girls were packed first.  Kaitlyn, then Ella, then Sophie.  Mom and Dad have their clothes laid out but not quite packed completely.  Dad still has to iron his dress clothes before he packs them.  Mom needs to decide what she wants to wear on formal nights.

Sophie, supposedly under the direction of Ella, packed a jar of peanuts in her carry on luggage in case, “the peanuts on the airplane aren’t any good.” We are going to have to double check before we go.  I have a feeling they will try to sneak other things into the luggage before we go if they haven’t already done it.

As I am typing this, an email came out from St. Michael’s that Fifth Disease is going around at school!  Great!  Most times it passes without anyone knowing that’s what it is but it can spread a rash! That is just frickin great! We have PT conferences tonight so we are going to ask the teacher about it and debate on keeping the girls home from school tomorrow just to play it safe.

We have to make several trips to Target and make a magnet for our stateroom door go to work and go to Target again. Fill the tank and have a great vacation!  I can’t wait to make a lifetime of memories

We each have a piece of luggage plus our carry-on.  A few of us got new luggage for Christmas. The type where you can store your shoes separate from your clothing which is nice so you can keep your clothes clean.  We packed from a standpoint of events then packing for the day. We needed a formal, semi-formal and then the adults needed either another semi or formal dress for our adult night.

Clothing to pack:

• Formal attire (formal night)
• Semi-formal (semi-formal night)
• another formal or semi-formal attire (adult dinner)

These clothes we did a lot of mixing and matching.  I wore the same pants twice and brought three different shirts but only used two of them (mainly because I forgot I brought the third). I only wore a tie once.  Heather wore an nice dress all three nights but nothing extraordinarily fancy but she still looked damn good in them.  The girls wore nice dresses like you would see them wear at Easter or Christmas. There is laundry on most floors and a free ironing station in those rooms.

• Pirate costumes (for pirate night). Ella had hers from Halloween (we were thinking ahead) and the rest of our costumes were simply white torn/tattered shirts, a red sash and black pants.  They would give us bandannas to wear on the cruise.
• Swimsuits (packed 3 each)
• Swimsuit cover-ups – mainly for the girls.  I just wore t-shirts to cover my belly
• non-formal dinner attire- mainly mixed and matched 3 pairs of shorts with about 5 pairs of shirts for these nights. Girls did have a couple of sundresses with to wear for these nights. Sundresses don’t take up much room.
• Socks/Undies – underwear for each day but only 3 pair or white socks and pair of dress socks.
• Jeans/longer pants/capris – it gets cool at night. Especially in the winter. Plus the wind can really whip.  Most nights with us going 20 mph and the wind coming at us at 20 mph it felt like 40mph winds on deck.  Most nights we weren’t on deck, perhaps for this very reason.
• Sweatshirt/jacket – for the above reason.  Also we would occasionally run into some brief showers at sea.
• Flip flops, dress shoes (again can wear same shoes for multiple dresses/pants), and tennis shoes.
• At least 3-4 bottles of sunscreen.
• Aloe
• Medicines including band aids and diarrhea medicine.  We were glad we brought both with.  Don’t forget throat lousengers.
• Chargers
• Cap and sunglasses
• Lanyard and plastic pouch.  You need your Key to World card in many instances.  It was nice to have a lanyard.  We had bought lanyards ahead of time but had to buy the plastic pouch on board which actually wasn’t a bad thing either.
• Princess dress for the little girls your life
• Door magnets are cool to have and look at while on board
• Camera/video camera
• Noise maker and own alarm clock – we never used either of these but through the DIS forum this was often suggested. For us it was not needed but I believe Augers used their sound machine.  Noise maker so you don’t hear anyone in the halls.  Alarm clock for those in the other half of the room so they know what time it is in the middle of the night and also to give them a little extra night light.
• Tipping cash
• Travel documents (passports, reservations)

up next: T-minus 1 Day

Dad