Narnia_girl
He's not a tame lion, but he is good.
- Joined
- May 11, 2009
We are back for another fun cruise adventure and trip report!
Our cruising began in 2009 when our oldest child graduated from high school. We enjoyed a waaaaaay-too-short 3 night cruise on the Wonder to the Bahamas. Then in 2014 our second child graduated and we enjoyed a 4-night cruise to the Bahamas. Guess what—it was too short also! But it was a blast. Here is our family before we boarded the Dream.
Fast forward another five years, it’s 2019 and our youngest child is graduating from high school, so time to cruise again!
Although our family has grown (our oldest married a wonderful young woman) our cruising group has shrunk. This time around it’s just mom, dad, DS (24) and DD (19).
Here’s how it started. The first cruise we took was a major, big surprise that no one knew about except me. I surprised the family on Christmas morning, but we sailed in July. (Corbin Bleu and other Disney Channel stars were also onboard with us.)
The next cruise, for our second son’s graduation, was sort of expected. DD managed to find out about it ahead of time, although she kept the secret until Christmas when I announced it again.
This time around, it’s no surprise. DD is the biggest Disney fan in our family and she’s the youngest. The boys got cruises so she knew we’d be taking another one after her graduation.
This time, I was smarter as far as costs are concerned.
On our first cruises I booked about 8 months out and thought I was a genius for being so forward thinking. I had no idea people booked more than a year out routinely. So...this time I looked at itineraries and compared previous opening day prices. I researched non-stop and finally came up with a decision...cruising in the summer after her graduation on Disney Cruise Line was a budget buster I wasn’t willing to do.
That presented a real problem because I did not want to disappoint my daughter, and the rest of us love cruising DCL, too. So sometime in early 2018 I decided that we should plan a fall cruise instead of summer. Yes, our daughter would be off at college by then, but the savings meant we could have a longer vacation.
I looked at all the options, considering most seriously Bermuda and California. Cali won out and we booked a 4-nighter out of San Diego for October, 2019.
Now this is where I was taking a big risk, because our daughter would be in college then, and at that point she hadn’t even chosen a college. I had no way of knowing whether the as-yet-unknown institution of higher learning that she would attend would have fall break at the exact time we were cruising, or indeed, even if they would have fall break at all!
But I was optimistic, and in May, 2018 plunked down a deposit on that Baja Cruise!
Research commenced immediately and we decided we better visit Disneyland while were in the neighborhood. I also started bulking up my discounted Disney gift cards as much as I could (see Aladdin above).
On a related note, in October, 2018 DD and I took a mother-daughter trip to Walt Disney World.
We fly out of St. Louis which is about 120 miles from our home. Not far from the airport is a university that DD was interested in visiting. So we scheduled a tour of the school a few hours before we flew to Orlando. It was kind of fun to talk to the admissions people about how we were going to Disney World after we left campus!
It turns out that was the school for her! By Christmas 2018 she committed to going to the college we visited right before going to Disney World.
It’s a great university and now it seems to have a bit of Pixie Dust sprinkled on it.
Once that commitment was made I was able to find out the school’s fall break schedule.
What do you think? Did the pixie dust continue and her fall break work out perfectly for our cruise? Or was my booking ill timed?
And when do we get to Galveston?
Our cruising began in 2009 when our oldest child graduated from high school. We enjoyed a waaaaaay-too-short 3 night cruise on the Wonder to the Bahamas. Then in 2014 our second child graduated and we enjoyed a 4-night cruise to the Bahamas. Guess what—it was too short also! But it was a blast. Here is our family before we boarded the Dream.
Fast forward another five years, it’s 2019 and our youngest child is graduating from high school, so time to cruise again!
Although our family has grown (our oldest married a wonderful young woman) our cruising group has shrunk. This time around it’s just mom, dad, DS (24) and DD (19).
Here’s how it started. The first cruise we took was a major, big surprise that no one knew about except me. I surprised the family on Christmas morning, but we sailed in July. (Corbin Bleu and other Disney Channel stars were also onboard with us.)
The next cruise, for our second son’s graduation, was sort of expected. DD managed to find out about it ahead of time, although she kept the secret until Christmas when I announced it again.
This time around, it’s no surprise. DD is the biggest Disney fan in our family and she’s the youngest. The boys got cruises so she knew we’d be taking another one after her graduation.
This time, I was smarter as far as costs are concerned.
On our first cruises I booked about 8 months out and thought I was a genius for being so forward thinking. I had no idea people booked more than a year out routinely. So...this time I looked at itineraries and compared previous opening day prices. I researched non-stop and finally came up with a decision...cruising in the summer after her graduation on Disney Cruise Line was a budget buster I wasn’t willing to do.
That presented a real problem because I did not want to disappoint my daughter, and the rest of us love cruising DCL, too. So sometime in early 2018 I decided that we should plan a fall cruise instead of summer. Yes, our daughter would be off at college by then, but the savings meant we could have a longer vacation.
I looked at all the options, considering most seriously Bermuda and California. Cali won out and we booked a 4-nighter out of San Diego for October, 2019.
Now this is where I was taking a big risk, because our daughter would be in college then, and at that point she hadn’t even chosen a college. I had no way of knowing whether the as-yet-unknown institution of higher learning that she would attend would have fall break at the exact time we were cruising, or indeed, even if they would have fall break at all!
But I was optimistic, and in May, 2018 plunked down a deposit on that Baja Cruise!
Research commenced immediately and we decided we better visit Disneyland while were in the neighborhood. I also started bulking up my discounted Disney gift cards as much as I could (see Aladdin above).
On a related note, in October, 2018 DD and I took a mother-daughter trip to Walt Disney World.
We fly out of St. Louis which is about 120 miles from our home. Not far from the airport is a university that DD was interested in visiting. So we scheduled a tour of the school a few hours before we flew to Orlando. It was kind of fun to talk to the admissions people about how we were going to Disney World after we left campus!
It turns out that was the school for her! By Christmas 2018 she committed to going to the college we visited right before going to Disney World.
It’s a great university and now it seems to have a bit of Pixie Dust sprinkled on it.
Once that commitment was made I was able to find out the school’s fall break schedule.
What do you think? Did the pixie dust continue and her fall break work out perfectly for our cruise? Or was my booking ill timed?
And when do we get to Galveston?
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