Disney Cruise 2018

If you have been here for a while you know that my mom, myself and the girls head off to our annual girls trip each fall! We have made a tradition out of it and it really is one of our most favorite trips. 2018 made for our 5th Disney cruise but this year we tried a new ship, the Disney Dream. We have traveled on the smaller ship Disney Magic for our last handful of trips but wanted to try something a bit different.

We head into Florida a day early to get settled and be ready to board the ship the next morning. My mama is a master travel wizard and always plans our trips to perfection. I get to be a kid again with my kidlets and literally follow along like a baby duckling. The girls sported their new cruise Minnie ears the whole travel day and were so spoiled by our flight crew! They got a special invite to the cockpit to sit in the Captain’s chair and push all the buttons. I was so giddy for them!

The next morning we get in our nautical gear and head over to board The Dream. In true Disney magic, the sweetest crew makes special announcements when each family arrives on the ship. It never gets old! We have our routine of hitting the buffet first, obvi! Then we are off the explore! Since this ship was twice as big as the Magic we wanted to get our lay of the land. Vanelope’s Candy store, check! Pool, check! Waterslide, check! Kids club, check! Scavenger Hunt, check! Ice cream cone, check! After an hour or so, our bags arrived and we were able decorate with our door magnets and check out our room and look at the itinerary for the rest of the day!

First up was Mickey’s Bon Voyage party! This party is so fun! Mickey and whole gang come out for a super fun dance party full of confetti canons! We absolutely love this party! All the cruise vibes and we can never resist a good dance party. This is also when Capri locked in to her new friend! She introduced herself to an adorable little 9 year old Jolie. Jolie and her family were cruising from Ohio and the girls were immediate besties. They were the cutest little clones in every way! Jolie’s family (daddy Donnie, little sister Maylynn, and little brother Kempton) were just as precious as she was and me and Jolie’s mama Amy became friends right away too!

That night we were super excited to meet our dinner crew. These guys are our buds for the whole trip and follow us from dinner to dinner. We love making friends with them right away! In true Disney fashion the wait staff are the most fun! Each night they make dinner special with treats for the girls, magic tricks and jokes. They are simply the best! Capri was on a mission each night to show off her magic skills.

We hit the Bahamas for our yearly cruise and have to be honest only get off the ship once the whole time! Our first morning, we sleep in and then head for breakfast and pool time. The Dream has a super fun waterslide that the girls were so excited to try out. With Jolie in tow, the girls danced their booties off at the Deck the Halls dance party, hit the AquaDuck waterslide on repeat, ate endless ice cream cones and were fishies all day. Mom always treats them to something super special each year. Last year was the Royal Tea party, the year before that was swimming with Dolphins in Nassau and the year before that was Bippity Boppity Boutique. This year it was braids on deck. Very fancy! They were feeling themselves to say the least!

Our second day we woke up at our favorite stop Castaway Cay which is Disney’s private island. This is our must stop port! We LOVE it so much! We jump on the trolley and find our favorite spot on the beach by the shipwreck floating waterslide. The girls partied all day on the beach with Jolie, Maylynn and Kempton. We had the best ever beach bbq complete with our favorite characters and soaked up the most fun day!

That night was the Pirate Party! This is a DO NOT miss party! Everyone gets in full pirate costume and hits the deck for music, Mickey zip lining from the smoke stacks and fireworks off the ship! It blows our minds every year! The Disney Magic had their party all in one show but the Dream breaks it up into two. One early show for a younger kids crowd and then a later party for older ones and adults. Both are super fun no matter the age!

On our last day, we did more pool fun and endless waterslide runs. I got down it a couple times and it was a blast. That afternoon, I took Jolie and Capri to see the ship’s magician. The shows on Disney cruises are unreal! Full Broadway style productions with the most incredible music, costumes, stage design and stories. They are some of our favorites! Outside of the musical based shows is an amazing magic show that we never miss! We hurried over to see the magician show us some sneak peaks into how he performs some of his magic tricks from the night before. We left with some super good tricks to try out on nana and Jolie’s family.

After another super fun day of pool fun, we gathered up our trading pins for the Officer’s Pin trading event. Last year the girls were chosen to be Honorary Officers Pin traders which was a super big deal! They got to stand in line with the Officers of the ship and trade pins to the crowd. This year we were on a mission for some super special edition pins.

For dinner, we headed to Animator’s Pallette which is a totally different design and theme as the one on the Magic. This is one of our favorite dinner nights! Crush from Finding Nemo interacts with the crowd and really took a liking to Peyton who was right next to him. They chatted it up for about 5 minutes! Disney is just too good!

We were sad to be heading home! We had full bellies, another trip packed with awesome memories and family of new friends to keep in contact with when we come home. We had already planned for a Disneyland trip with them in the near future!

10 must have Disney Cruise essentials

We are Disney Cruise bound tomorrow sailing to the Bahamas for our annual girl’s trip. My mom, the girls and I are cruising for our 5th time and can’t wait! We are packing our last minute essentials and wanted to share our must haves to take full advantage of all the Disney fun on the ship!

1. Ears! You can’t go on a Disney vacay without a little Disney swag! Last year we did personalized pajamas for Pluto’s PJ party. This year we got cruise themed ears! These are fun to wear as you board the ship, at the Bon voyage party or just to dinner!

2. A cute coordinated family outfit for boarding the ship. There is a handful of cute photo ops as you board the ship. We always go with a nautical look of stripes. The characters are roaming around all in their nautical gear too.

3. Door magnets are a fun kid’s activity. We got personalized door magnets a couple years back and the kids get such a kick out of labeling our board room ours for the week with their cute mini ears and nautical outfit magnets. A big percentage of the staterooms have decorated doors from other guests so it’s fun to add your own flair to your door.

5. Princess dresses for a night you want to be fancy or for a princess activity. We always have our dresses ready for a fancy night. It’s so cute to see the girls in all their glory.

6. Warm layers are something we have found the most helpful. The ships can be chilly so having a pair of pants or a sweater is really helpful. We always make sure to pack cozy sweats for the girls for when they come in from the pool with wet hair and are chilly for their afternoon activities.

7. Comfy cruise clothes that you can relax in. We have learned that Disney is so relaxed and so easy breezy with it’s dress code. We love that we can wear sundresses and a sweater for most any of the dinners or shows and feel comfy. Having loose comfy clothing let’s you make belly room for all the yummy treats.

8. Trading pins have become a must have. We started our lanyards on our second cruise and it’s become a great evening activity. We gather up some good pins we are willing to part with ( aka buy a handful fo to trade with the best collector pins on the ship. They even host a Captain’s pin trading night where all the officers of the ship gather with their pins to trade. The girl’s were honored with special Officer Pin awards last year. It was a huge highlight!

9. You want to be ready for Mickey’s Pirate Party. It’s a total blast! The ship provides themed bandanas but it’s fun to go the extra mile for the party with some easy costumes.

10. We find that we don’t get off the ship much outside of exploring Castaway Cay. There are lots of fun picture ops on this special island. The characters venture off the ship in their island gear and are so fun to mingle with. We plan for our cute swimsuits and cover ups this day. We have our annual picture of the girls over the years next to the big Cay anchor and it’s such a fun memory.

We are off to sail on the Disney Dream this year and couldn’t be more excited! We have had the best time each year and it just never disappoints. Between gormet food, Broadway worthy shows, character meetings and a million other activities it’s virtually impossible to not have the greatest time.