Last fall Rob and I were entertaining the idea of a trip around Christmas. I mean we get 2 weeks off at Christmas and we knew Alex never got to go on a cruise since the one we cancelled. We ended up choosing one and pitching it to Alex and his girlfriend, Madison. They were good to go, so we booked it. We had to Drew and Caitlyn about it and invited them, thinking they probably wouldn’t be able to go since they already had one booked for April. However, they ended up calling us that night and getting it booked too. So awesome! Both our boys and their girls and us on a cruise. I was so excited.
We left the Friday and drove down to Ocala. We took 2 cars, so I had decided a fun way to get people to ride in different cars was to have our 2 drivers and then everyone else draw rocks to determine who would ride with who. Otherwise, it would be me and Rob in a car and the 4 kids in Drew’s car. Here we are drawing rocks before we left the hotel on Saturday morning, so Ocala to Port Canaveral.
Despite a ton of traffic and some bad rain, we made it to Port Canaveral. Actually we parked at
Park N Cruise, which is Merritt Island and they shuttled us over to the port. Rob and I were becoming Platinum VIP status for Carnival during this cruise, but many of the perks we did not take advantage of because we would have to separate from the kids for that. So instead of jumping ahead in the check-in line, we stayed back with them. The process was still pretty painless. We were on the ship in about 30 minutes.
Rob is front of us…so he missed out on the selfie.
We got on board and went to our rooms, checked in at our muster station, and then got something to eat. From there, we mainly stayed inside, unpacked and walked around the ship. Like I said the weather wasn’t ideal, so being on deck to watch us leave wasn’t very appealing. That evening we enjoyed dinner with the fam and comedy and the Broadway style show in the Mardi Gras Theater.
What would end up becoming one of our favorite things was going to the Brass Magnolia to relax and enjoy the jazz trio/quartet perform. The singer voice was so good. Such amazing talent on this ship!
My next cruise post will talk about our 1st two days at sea!
All the pics from these 2 days here>>>Day 1
That is so awesome that everyone was able to go on the trip.
How much fun to do this a a whole family!!!
I love that the whole family was able to join you; I’m sure that made this trip extra fun!