The Brink Bunch: Disney Dream

The night before, I had arranged with the front desk for us to ride the first shuttle over to Cape Canaveral at 10:15am so we woke up, got dressed and down for breakfast around 9am in the hotel restaurant. Things were a bit hairy for us and our morning began a bit on the challenging side. Noah is a juice-a-holic. He has been since he was a toddler and would drink his weight in juice if we let him. He also has to chew food carefully and we make sure to give him small bites of food to avoid him getting choked. After drinking several cups of juice, Noah got choked on his waffle and it all came up. All over himself and Jamie and the table we were sitting at. YUCK. Then as we are getting up from the table, we realized he had a potty accident that had his shorts and shoes soaked. Not a great start to our exciting, relaxing vacation! 'Tis life with children! :) But we hurried back to our room, bathed him again and dressed him in clean clothes.

Since we would have to check our luggage in at the cruise terminal and wouldn't see it until we got into our staterooms later in the day, we had a couple of carry-on's with our swimsuits and anything that we might need in the mean time. I'm not completely sure what time we made it to the port (probably around 10:30-10:40am) and got in line for security. Since we took the hotel shuttle, they unloaded our luggage and we only had to roll it a few feet to check it in onto the ship. Since we had our hands full with the boys and our carry on's, this was nice! If you drive and park on your own, you have to wheel your luggage from the parking deck down to the terminal, same as an airport. With small children (or one with special needs that will walk off if you don't keep a hand on him) it was MUCH easier taking the hotel shuttle and having them deal with our luggage. We had to wait in line outside for maybe 20 minutes or so until we made it inside where we went through security, similar to an airport, then up the escalators to the terminal. By the time we made it up there, it was already busy with people getting checked in. We got in line for our check in and were given our stateroom keys (cards), took our pictures for security purposes and went over some of the information. In the center of the terminal is a replica of the Disney Magic cruise ship as well as different characters posing for pictures with the kids. My kids love all things Disney but for some reason they are so nonchalant about the characters. Like, "oh yeah, there's Mickey. We know one another so no biggie." I'm pretty positive I get more excited than they do about the characters every. single. time. Needless to say, it was probably a good thing this time around since we were about to spend 4 days with Mickey and the gang and the line to see him was already pretty long and we had our arms loaded down (I over packed for our carry on's and it was a pain carrying those bags around, especially once we boarded the ship and didn't have anywhere to put our stuff until the room was ready). We found seats and just hung out until our time to board the ship. Boarding began at 11:30am but you are assigned by group numbers. I'm not sure how they decide what group number you're in because we did our online registration well before our friends did and we got to the cruise terminal before them but we were in group 21 and they were in group 11. You can also go over to an area in the terminal to check your kids in for the Kids Club (or Explorer's Club). They issue them their 'magic' security bracelets and you fill out the information as far as who can check them out and any special needs, dietary requests, etc. One thing that we quickly discovered is that if your kids are over 3 years old, they will secure the bracelet with a little plastic tag that prevents them from being able to remove their bracelet. This was the case for Noah. However, since Collier was 3, they wouldn't put that tag on his because if he were to get it off, it would be a choking hazard. This was a big problem for us the entire trip because he REFUSED to wear the bracelet and we couldn't keep it on him (therefore, we had issues with him in Kids Club... more about that later). It seemed to me like the younger kids would need the tag more so than the older kids and we even asked them if WE could put the tag on his bracelet, instead of them, but they claimed they would still be liable if something were to happen.

In route to port

Finally around noon or a little after, we were able to board the ship! Upon walking in to the atrium of the ship, all the crew is lined up and they announce and welcome every single family onboard while the crew claps. Such a fun way to begin the trip! Like everything Disney does, the atrium was stunning! It was elegant with subtle Disney touches and a bronze Captain Donald Duck statue at the base of the grand staircase. The cruise ship had already filled up pretty fast and we were a bit overwhelmed as to where we needed to go. Thankfully, there were plenty of cast members and crew to point you in the right direction and we found our way to one set of elevators and up to the 11th deck for lunch at Cabanas. The pools were already packed full of kids and adults and Cabanas was just as busy. Cabanas is where we ate all of our breakfasts and lunches and is a large buffet of anything and everything you can want, surrounded by plenty of indoor and outdoor seating. Jamie and the boys found a table while I headed in to make plates for the kids and myself. After eating outside by the pool, we went back to the 9th floor where our stateroom was located and waiting in the lobby until the rooms were ready. We only had to wait about 15 minutes until they dropped the ropes indicated the rooms were ready so we headed off to find our stateroom, drop off our carry-ons, and change into our bathing suits. We quickly headed back up to the pool and found our friends at Nemo's Reef. All the kids were able to enjoy Nemo's Reef, which is a large covered splash pad for kids under 8. Since swimmy diapers aren't allowed in the pools, the splash pad provides water fun for those that can't get in the pool. It's enclosed with only 1 entrance/exit and a life guard to keep an eye on things to help prevent any accidents. Jamie found several lounge chairs and he and Noah relaxed while me, Collier, Anna and Charlie headed to the Mickey pool (Ryan, Anna's husband, was in the room with their little boy, Ellis letting him nap). The Mickey pool is only a few feet deep in the center with a 1 foot deep sitting area for parents around the edges. The Donald Duck pool is on the other end and is 5 1/2 ft. deep in the center with a 1 ft. deep sitting edge. I brought both of the boys life jackets and a puddle jumper (we hadn't been to the pools yet so I wasn't sure if Collier would prefer the puddle jumper or the life jacket, so I just brought both) however Disney provides life jackets so it isn't necessary unless you feel like your child will do better with his own. Charlie and Collier had a great time together, even though the pool was pretty crowded and since it wasn't deep, she pulled him all around without their floatees while Anna and I sat on the side watching them.

I had read where everyone decorates their stateroom doors with magnets. You can make your own (which is what I did) or you can purchase them off of Etsy.

That slide in the background is for kids, however they have to be 4 and up and can't use floats. Charlie enjoyed it but Collier wasn't old enough.

After a couple hours out in the sun playing in the pools, we had to hurry and get cleaned up. They had a mandatory safety class that began at 4:30 and our dinner was for the early seating at 5:45pm. We actually missed the Sail-Away Celebration out on the deck on the ship since we were hurrying to get ready for the safety class. I had to go to it with wet hair and no makeup. Although the class was brief, it was a bit of a pain. They act out what you do in case of a problem on board so you aren't able to use the elevators and have to use the staff stairs to go to your designated safety area. We had to carry Noah down then back up about 6 flights of stairs. Talk about a workout! But its better to be prepared just in case something were to happen. After the class, we all finished getting ready and headed down to the Enchanted Garden for our first dinner. When we made our reservations, I contacted Priceline to let them know that we would be with the Cowley's and they were supposed to link our reservations so we would be at the same table for dinner. When we got to the restaurant, we were assigned to separate tables, however, since Disney customer service is 'THA BOMB, they had the problem resolved in a matter of 5 minutes and had us sitting together for all of our dinners the rest of the trip. We quickly discovered one of the most bragged about things when it comes to cruises, and Disney in particular, is their dinner service! The servers are incredible. They learned the kids' names as well as everyone's preferred drink of choice and after the 1st night would have it sitting on the table waiting on us! They cater to everyone, the food is amazing and the entire experience is enjoyable. Which is something to say as a parent dining with kids! I wish I had taken pictures of all of my dinners but this particular night I'm pretty sure I had Lobster Ravioli. One of the awesome (and fattening) things is that if you want 2 appetizers, they'll bring them both; same with desserts, etc. If you can't decide between 2 entrees, they'll bring you 1 entree and a smaller portion of the other that you are torn between. They are all about filling you up with food and making you happy! The kids' fare is typical tenders, french fries, macaroni/cheese, with a couple of healthy options too. And ketchup is put on the plate into the shape of Mickey (for the boys) and Minnie (for the girls). If something needed to be cut into smaller pieces for the kids, they were on top of it before I could even try to. They would cut Noah's chicken tenders up and were so attentive and sweet to not just him, but all of the kiddos.

Dinners tend to be long and the kids did get a bit antsy and these two would always end up out of their seats and playing. Thankfully, so were everyone else's kids, too! Following our dinner, we walked around the ship, watched a dance performance in the atrium and got in line to see Pluto. This was the longest line we waited in for a character greeting (but we didn't do princesses for obvious reasons.) The kids entertained themselves by playing in the portholes of the ship. Prior to our trip, I wondered how we would all do with the movement and the seasickness factor since this was our first time. I've heard horror stories of people getting sea sick and I just hoped and prayed that wouldn't be the case for us. The only time I could feel movement of the boat was when looking out the portholes and seeing that we were actually moving. We had very calm waters and there were no problems whatsoever. I didn't even experience the swimmy feeling after the cruise ended. And apparently it didn't bother the kids one bit. After exploring the ship for a bit, we made it back to our stateroom to find the our stateroom host, Yasi had cleaned it and left us a cute towel elephant!

Our stateroom was an inside stateroom. However, we should have gotten a larger room. We were on top of one another and our room felt in like it was in disarray the whole trip. They provide an ottomon/coffee table in front of the couch and we had to move it over between the wall and our bed just to have a little more space. We had a queen bed, a couch, and a bunk bed that would magically appear from the ceiling each night. Collier loved the bunk bed and he slept on top without any trouble each night! On the ceiling above the top bunk was a display of stars shaped into Peter Pan characters. Even thought Collier isn't familiar with Peter Pan, he enjoyed the stars. They do have a curtain that you can pull back to separate the queen bed from the kids bunks and even though we didn't have a window we had a magic porthole. There are cameras on the outside front of the ship that are linked up to the porthole 'tv screens' so it provides a view of the ocean through the porthole. We could turn our porthole on and off and it was as if we were looking out the window, except that occasionally Tinkerbell or Nemo would fly by!

The door to the left by the front door was our bathroom. I failed to get a picture but it was large enough for a toilet, sink and tub/shower. When bathing the boys, only one of us could be in there at a time, just to give you an idea of the size. There wasn't a whole lot of room for moving around in there. When we do it again, we will definitely upgrade to a larger room. The inside state rooms are supposed to accommodate 4 people but I would say it's better for a family of 3 at the most. One thing that I loved was that they have Disney on demand movies and tv shows, so you have any Disney movie and Disney Jr. show at your finger tips! I was SO EXCITED that Beauty and The Beast was available to watch (since I don't own it on DVD and can't find it ANYWHERE) so I was eager to introduce my boys to my favorite Disney movie and they enjoyed it as well! That just about concludes our first day aboard the Dream...the next morning was a stop in Nassau, Bahamas!

Back in January on a whim, we decided to do a Disney cruise with another family. This was actually a big deal for Jamie because he doesn't do ANYTHING on a whim. I happened to mention how fun I thought a Disney cruise would be and found a pretty decent deal right before their peak season began, so I text (or is it texted?) my friend to see if she and her family would be interested (they said YES immediately) and within 3 days, we booked it. We had never been on a cruise, much less taken our boys on a cruise but we were incredibly excited about a new experience. Thankfully, there is much less planning that goes into a Disney cruise than a trip to Disney World and other than booking the cruise, there wasn't too much else to do except patiently wait for the next 4 months to pass by until our trip.... which wasn't easy! I did have a slight panic attack one night while trying to go to bed because it hit me that I didn't really think things through for Noah before booking the trip. Would they be accommodating to his needs? Would he be allowed in the Kids Club with Collier and the others? How would he handle the movement of the boat? Swimmy diapers aren't allowed in the pools so would Noah have to stay out of the pool the entire trip? etc etc etc. After getting on my computer and googling way to many sites about special needs and disney cruises until the wee hours of the morning, I relaxed... I mean, after all, it IS Disney! The whole reason we did this was because how incredibly special they had made our trip to Disney with Noah the previous fall. The next day, I called DCL (Disney Cruise Lines) Special Services department and spoke with an incredibly nice man who calmed most of my worries and set me at ease for our upcoming trip.

Finally May rolled around and it was time for our trip! We decided to break the drive to Cape Canaveral into two days and checked Noah out of school after lunch on Friday, and hit the road. We somehow managed to turn a 5 hour drive into a much longer drive by running into the Summit in Birmingham for me to make a clothing exchange at a store that we don't have in Florence, having to make several potty stops (I could blame it on our newly potty-trained 3 year old, but Jamie is just as bad with his pea-sized bladder and the big gulp diet coke that he gets at every gas station stop), as well as stopping to eat dinner at a restaurant. We rolled in to Dothan around 10 pm and checked into our hotel room and went straight to sleep. We weren't in too big of a hurry the next morning and got on the road around 10:30am for the remainder of our drive. We anticipated about 6 hours on the road, however once we were a few hours outside of Orlando, we had to take a detour due to a terrible car wreck that had the interstate closed down. The detour added a few hours to our journey thanks to having to drive through several small towns, terrible traffic (since everyone on the interstate had to take the same detour) and lots of traffic lights. We had originally planned to stop in at Downtown Disney for dinner but we had to cancel since we wouldn't be able to make our reservation and after the extra hours on the road, we just wanted to get to our hotel. When crossing over into Cape Canaveral the first thing you see is the cruise port and all of the huge cruise ships! We had booked a Park and Cruise package with the Four Points by Sheraton in Cocoa Beach, which is just a 5 - 10 minute drive from the cruise terminals and it ended up being a great deal. Our hotel was really fun and kid-friendly with a large floor to ceiling aquarium in the center of the restaurant and the sleeping rooms were large and very nice. Apparently, it's right on the beach and has a fun pool but we never saw either of the two. We had dinner surrounding the aquarium and the kids enjoyed getting to point out the different fish. Collier found Nemo, Dory and several others. After our dinner, our friends, the Cowley's, checked in to their room and came up to ours so the kids could play for a little bit. Their oldest Charlie and Collier are buddies and had been eager to see one another the whole day! After letting he kids burn some of their energy, the Cowley's headed to their room and we got our boys fast asleep and eagerly awaited the next day when our vacation would officially begin!

This is how we started our journey... Jamie driving, me and Noah in the back seats with Collier on the 3rd row (even though he's never set back there.) I thought it would make it easier for distributing snacks and entertainment with me in the back with the boys. WRONG. The newness of the 3rd row wore off fast for Collier and we played a little Chinese Fire Drill in Moulton in the Subway parking lot.