Disney Cruise - Nassau

Breakfast of champions.

Just like Mr. Goodluck had promised, we woke up to beautiful calm seas. Our early-rising girls were quickly dressed and ready for action, so we were some of the first upstairs at Cabanas, the buffet on the pool deck. We ate and headed forward, hoping to watch the ship pull into our first port of call, Nassau, Bahamas! It was amazing to watch our huge ship aim for a slot between the breakers and slide into the port, then stop and spin in order to back into its parking space. Impressive! (Although apparently on the sailing after ours, something went wrong and the Dream bumped the dock on the way in, causing quite a bit of cosmetic damage! Oops!)

Contemplating life with coffee. (Spoiler alert - the coffee was meh.)

A windy sunrise!

Passing the lighthouse pulling into port.

Waiting for the pools to open.

We had already decided to stay on board in Nassau. The idea is that the ship will empty out and you'll have the place to yourselves, although more and more people are opting to skip Nassau excursions and I honestly couldn't tell a difference with the crowds. (Although side note, it never really felt that crowded on board. There were a few moments of craziness but for the most part, it wasn't unusual to be the only people waiting for an elevator or walking down the hallway.) Since we were already on the top deck, the girls took a quick paddle around the pools (there is a deeper one and a small kiddie Mickey pool) and then we decided to check out Goofy's Sports Deck and play some mini golf.

Hole in one?

Violet's new thing is making a peace sign in every picture!

Goofy Golfing Girls

Then it was time to quickly get dressed for our Frozen Meet and Greet! While there were always plenty of Disney characters and princesses around in the atrium, the girls were never interested in standing in line to meet anyone. But the Frozen princesses could only be accessed via (free) pre-booked tickets that gave you a specific time to show up. The princesses had a few minutes to talk to each visitor (our girls had a conversation about how sisters take care of each other) and then Anna suggested they all hold hands and make a "sister chain" for the picture. So cute! Violet is already skeptical - she informed me she knows that the characters are just people dressed up.

The sister chain!

We took the kids to kids club to play and then Matt and I checked out the ship's fitness area and hit the treadmills for a bit. It decided to pour buckets at this point of the day, so it's just as well the kids were at the club. We showered and decided to find something grown up to do while they were occupied. There was trivia happening at one of the pubs, and even though we showed up four questions late (and even though these were the most random trivia questions ever) we ended up winning, ha! The prize - two Disney Cruise Line luggage tags and bragging rights! Then it was time to get ready for our Halloween on the High Seas trick-or-treating party! We returned to the room, ordered the girls an early dinner through room service and got everyone showered. We were really hoping Annie would nap but no dice.

Let's get some candy!

Due to the previous rain showers, the trick-or-treating was moved from the pool deck to the atrium, and this was the only time I really felt overwhelmed by crowds. It was almost impossible to get through the hallways as everyone tried to get to the candy stations. But based on the candy haul the girls made, it was worth it! The kids were way more interested in their candy than the dancing characters inside. Then it was time to sail away!

We escaped the crowds for a few minutes!

So. Many. People.

"Moana" watching the Dream pull out of Nassau from our balcony.

A rainbow!

We headed to our show - a magic show this time - in the Walt Disney Theater, and then I decided to try a new tactic for dinner. Since Annie didn't take a nap, I'd just have to caffeine them up! So we headed to the pool deck (home of the free soda machines) and let them drink their fill while we watched the sunset. At this point, we were sailing on smooth seas, and I was so relieved that we weren't experiencing the wild rocking from the night before.

Ocean sunset!

Drink up, me heartys, yo ho!

The pool deck, so pretty at night!

Well, despite my best efforts, Annie could still not make it through dinner. Our wonderful serving team (you have the same waiters the whole trip, they rotate to all the different dining rooms with you) were so sweet and brought out extra tableclothes to serve as blankets. They also cut up the girls' food for them. Hello service! We ate at Animator's Palette, a very cool restaurant filled with giant tv screens that showed various Disney characters. Crush the Turtle from Finding Nemo showed up on ours and proceeded to have a personal conversation with Violet, asking her for her name (and when she was too shy to answer, he asked me!) and where she was from. We made it through dessert and then headed for bed, knowing that the next day we'd be heading to our private Disney island!

Disney Cruise!

Finally, the screen I've been waiting for on my countdown app!

I've never considered myself a cruise person. Having never been on one, sure, I don't really have much to compare it to. But being stuck on a boat? With all those people? And what about those horror stories you hear of everyone getting sick? Yeah, it's never really appealed to me.

Enter our neighbors, who have recently become Disney Cruise professionals! After hearing story after story of their amazing experiences (and knowing there is no way we're taking our kids to the Disney parks any time soon) we started wondering... Next thing you know, we had signed ourselves up for a Fall Break cruise to the Bahamas on the Disney Dream. The countdown was on! I spent basically all summer working on cruise details, joining various Facebook groups (there was even a group for our specific itinerary and it was cool to get to know some people and have a place to share ideas), and planning Fish Extender gifts.

Fish Extenders are this whole thing where you join a group of ten or so staterooms, and then get little gifts for everyone. During the cruise, you hang a special bag with pockets outside your door on the fish-shaped hook, and then the people in your group leave little presents throughout the trip. It's like putting a stocking up at Christmas time. It's certainly not mandatory, but it adds a little something magical to your trip. Of course I just had to participate, and I knew I had to get it all done this summer because once school started, I wouldn't have time to think about the cruise at all!

And then, the hurricanes hit. I knew Harvey wouldn't be a problem, and Irma was too early to affect us (although there were fears the Disney Island, Castaway Cay, would be damaged). Jose spun himself silly in the Atlanta before getting close. But Maria. Oh, Hurricane Maria. Our FB group was hot with speculation, concern, prayer. After watching anxiously, things appeared to be okay and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Anyway, all that to say, after weeks of cruise gear growing on the dining room table, we finally had our princess costumes, pirate outfits, Fish Extender gifts, and luggage packed and stuffed in the car, ready to go! After a quick stop in Peachtree City to celebrate Annie's birthday, we hit the road Sunday morning for the long trip to Port Canaveral.

We're on vacation!

We stayed the night at a hotel just minutes from the port; we even had dinner there the night before we sailed off. The entire hotel was packed with fellow cruisers. Annie made quick friends with the family next to us for breakfast who had been on the cancelled Hurricane Irma cruise - they were just happy to be sailing! After we couldn't stand the wait any longer, we headed to the port.

Let me tell you, Disney has this thing down to a science. A well-organized smooth science. Everyone is assigned a specific port arrival time to keep the lines from getting clogged. We checked it, used our new passports for the first time, and after hanging about the terminal for a bit (it was crowded but not unmanageable) we were finally given the go ahead to take our turn.

I'll admit, I teared up just stepping onto the ship. I have such a nostalgic connection to Disney from my childhood. I used to say I was going to marry Mickey when I was little, or work at Disney World. My brother and I made it a mission one summer to watch every single Disney animated classic movie. Plus this was such a big trip, had been planned for so long, thought about so hard... When we announced as we walked on board, "Welcome to the Loughman family!" and we walked through a line of clapping Disney cast members into this huge beautiful atrium... it was an emotional experience.

Minutes away from stepping foot onto the ship!

From endless previous discussions, we knew the first thing the kids wanted to do upon boarding was head to the pool deck. And why not? We were on board before noon but our room wouldn't be available until 1:30, with luggage delivered even later. So we had our swimsuits on under our clothes in preparation. Day one is a great day to hit the pool as well, because the ship won't be fully boarded until 3 p.m. or so. Might as well grab a spot on deck while it's less crowded, right?

I'm on a boat!

The girls immediately wanted to try out the Aqua Duck, a water slide that wraps all the way around the ship. Annie was juuuust tall enough to ride, which was awesome! I had already emotionally prepared her for not getting to go, but perhaps turning four two days earlier gave her the extra bump she needed! We rode the slide, found the much-anticipated free soft drinks and ice cream machine, and had a blast.

View from the Mickey Pool! See the water slide wrapping around the ship?

Waiting for our turn on the slide!

Matt and Annie on the Aqua Duck!

Violet on another slide.

Next we decided to grab lunch. I'd gotten an insider tip that rather than eating at the buffet on the pool deck, we could have a sit-down table-service lunch at Enchanted Gardens, one of the ship's restaurants. It remains one of the highlights of our trip. Something about being just the four of us, in this beautiful restaurant (think greenery, cobblestones, a fountain), being served a lovely lunch complete with the girls' first Mickey Bars for dessert... After the crowds getting on the boat, waiting for the slide, navigating the elevators - it was a beautiful oasis of calm in our day.

Family Selfie

We were finally able to check out our stateroom and unpack our bags. One of the first things on the list was decorating our door. Yes, to make it cute. But more importantly, so we'd be able to find it again in a hallway of identical doors! We met our stateroom host, the person in charge of making sure we were taken care of the whole trip (and the person who'd be making those cute little towel animals for our bed every evening) - Mr. Goodluck.

See the Fish Extender hanging by the door?

We visited the kids club area during their Open House hours, went to the required muster drill (safety briefing), and watched the Sail Away Party from the pool deck, where Mickey and his gang come out singing and dancing. Then it was time to get dressed for the show - The Golden Mickeys! - and dinner. At this point, the ship was rocking pretty steadily. Whether it was due to rough post-hurricane seas or the speed of our travel, there was significant motion. People were stumbling in the hallways and the curtains were swaying. It was clear pretty quickly that Annie wasn't feeling good. We arrived at dinner, met the very nice family with two girls we'd be dining with each night, and were basically in crisis management mode with two exhausted girls. Dinner that first night was pretty much a bust. Matt ended up leaving with a crying Annie and Violet and I were out before dessert. Once both girls were asleep, Matt and I ordered dessert via room service and were happy to call it an early night as well, with promises from Mr. Goodluck that the motion of the ocean would by done by morning. He was right!

Family picture on the balcony!

Happy Birthday Annie!

A Mickey Pirate theme cake before our Mickey cruise!

This sweet girl turned four! Can you believe it? Annie really feels like a "big" girl now and you can tell how proud she is of herself. She's learning sight words and lowercase letters in school and sits in her "big girl" booster seat in the car, just like her big sister. She is one smart and sassy cookie, let me tell you.

We celebrated her birthday with our neighbors and Annie got two different costumes, perfect for our Disney cruise. The next day we headed to Peachtree City so we could celebrate with family.

Celebrating with the neighbors.

Botanical Gardens

My girls and the Earth Goddess. Or as my girls insist, Te Fiti from Moana.

We took advantage of a truly beautiful fall-ish day to visit one of our favorite places in Atlanta, the Botanical Gardens. We have a membership pass, but the middle of the summer is always so hot, it makes it hard to even want to go. But mid-70s on a sunny Saturday in September? Yes, please! 

Look How We've Grown

Back to School

And then the summer was over, and we all headed back to school. Somehow I ended up with a second grader! How did that happen?! The days are long, but my how the years are short! Violet once again wants to be a teacher when she grows up. (I'll keep my opinions about that intended profession to myself.) She was totally ready to go - no tears, no whining, no "please walk me to my classroom while I hang onto your leg". I was so excited to learn Ms. Post was her teacher this year - I have a thing for second-year teachers. They're still full of enthusiasm and innovation; they haven't been beaten down by the system yet, haha!

Off she goes!

Violet and Ms. Post!

Matt took a "first day" picture with Annie too, even though she officially started a week early due to my pre-planning schedule. She's in Early Pre-K this year, thanks to that September birthday. She just missed the cut-off! This is hopefully our last year of daycare - my school opened up two special needs pre-k classes, and each classroom has two "typical peer" slots for staff kids. We toyed with the idea of trying to get her in this year, but it was too last minute for me to think through properly. Plus there would be no guarantee of a slot next year, which is when she is supposed to go. So, we're with Carrington for one more year. It's not a bad thing, either. Her teacher from last year looped up, so it made for a smooth transition, and we LOVE Ms. Breanna!

The first-ish day of Pre-ish K!

Annie's class... see her self-portrait in the top right corner?

And as for me... well, the best part of starting this year was not being the new teacher anymore! It's a relief to have a year under my belt at this beautiful school. I know how things work, I know what to expect, I know what's coming up. It makes a huge difference, let me tell you. And although I was sad to see the summer end, it reaches a point where you just want the school year to start and get the waiting over with!

A beautiful day to go back to school!

First grade team!

All In the Family

Our last adventure before heading back to school this year was the annual (okay, every other year) Loughman family reunion. The location rotates every two years between five different states, and this year it happened to be the Georgia year (so convenient!) While other family members booked their plane tickets and packed their vans for multi-hour drives, we just took our usual trip to Peachtree City! Which worked out well, considering that school was just around the corner. Had the location been half a country away, I'm not sure we could have made it. As it was, I was able to enjoy a few last minutes of summer and lots of family, food, and fun.

One of the best parts of the trip was watching my girls play with their cousins. (Second cousins? First cousins twice removed? I'm not sure we ever got the exact terminology correct but that didn't seem to bother the kids!) Growing up, we lived too far away and there was too much age difference to do much bonding with my own cousins. So the fact that these kiddos not only met for the first time, but managed to become instant buddies during the weekend was so much fun to watch. There were golf cart rides, water balloon fights, diving contests at the pool... two years is too long between these visits, but hopefully they'll always just pick up right where they left off!

The hallmark of these family reunions for me isn't the activities or events planned. Given that this is my city, there wasn't a need for sightseeing, after all. But even in a different location, the main event remains the same - the stories of antics from the past, the memories, the side-splitting laughter and hilarity - all of us just sitting on the porch, sprawling in the living room, the pockets of conversation springing up in this corner or that. 

And of course, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have the Loughman family recreate this family photo on the back porch! I even made Lee Anne close her eyes for continuity!