About a year ago, Eric and I started planning a big trip for our family... a Disney cruise. After a lot of research and consulting with our calendar, we decided on booking a trip on the Disney Fantasy to the Eastern Caribbean for February 2015.
When the planning truly got underway, the trip seemed sooooo far away. We opted to not tell the kids about it until MUCH closer to our departure date in order to keep them from going crazy waiting (and driving us crazy waiting). We told the kids about 3 weeks before we left by having a letter from Mickey Mouse arrive at our house. In the letter, Mickey invited the kids to join him and some of his friends on the ship. Being the rock star parents that we are, Eric and I told the kids it would be OK to accept Mickey's invitation.
Our trip started off VERY early on February 6th, the day before the ship was scheduled to depart. We had an 8 AM flight out of SeaTac to Orlando, which meant getting up a bit before 5 and being on the road by 5: 30 AM. After dropping the car off at the park-n-fly lot, we made our way through check in and security... fortunately, all went smoothly and we were fairly quickly grabbing a little breakfast before heading to our gate.
The flight to Orlando was long, but painless. The kids did really well keeping themselves entertained thanks to their tablets, coloring books, dollar store activities, and trips to the bathroom.
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| Eric and Annika en route to the gate |
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| Conor, the world traveler |
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| Getting ready for takeoff |
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| My wee traveling companions |
After 5-ish hours, we were on the ground... tired, but at least we made it! And, fortunately, so did our luggage!
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| Waiting for Daddy to collect the luggage |
When planning our trip, Eric and I opted to book a room in the airport hotel and it was the smartest move we could have made. Once we had our suitcases in hand, we eventually found the hotel (Orlando's airport signage could use a lot of improvements, let's just say) and got settled in our room. We put our feet up for a few minutes and then fulfilled our promise of taking the kids to the hotel pool. It was obvious that we were from a cooler climate, because we were the only ones even near the pool. It was windy and a bit chilly, but not bad for us northerners. Once the sun set, we knew it was time to wrap up our swim and find a little grub before bed and another early day.
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| Orlando happy hour (best husband EVER) |
On our way to and from dinner in the airport food court, we passed by a Disney store that had a few statues... aka photo ops. The kids were highly impressed with them and probably would have taken them home if we'd given them the green light to do so. Personally, I found the Snow White a bit creepy, but that didn't deter our munchkins from thinking she was divine.
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| Annika,Mickey, and Conor |
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| High fiving Mickey |
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| Conor, Snow White, andAnnika |
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| Goofy, Annika, and Conor |
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| Conor and Mickey |
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