Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Sailing Away On A Dream Vacation

This was the day we woke up and saw this:

This is always the most exciting day of a cruise! We decided to take this cruise in October 2023 so we hadn't been waiting all that long for it.
Rachel and I wore our colour coordinating pineapple shirts and Mickey ears. We took this picture, with palm trees in the background, to send to my parents. We were ready to go!!!
It's always so exciting to arrive at the port and get ready to board the ship!
Rachel was thrilled that an employee let her wear their Mickey hands and Sam was thrilled about "all you can eat ice cream"!
We're "finally on the ship" selfies!!! We sailed on the Disney Dream which was a new ship to us so we were eager to explore. Some parts were very familiar (Cabanas, the atrium, etc) and some parts were completely new to us.
This is Sam and Dave playing foosball in Vibe, the teen club, where Sam spent 90% of his awake time, if we weren't forcing him to do something else, and he wasn't getting ice cream. The first day, all the clubs have Open House time so anyone can check out whatever they want. After this day, except for specific open house times, there was a "steel door" that closed off Vibe and if you wanted to get your teen out, you had to call Vibe's reception from a phone and they would send your kid out. It was kind of hilarious!
No one else wanted to check out the kids' clubs until I sent Dave the picture of R2D2. Yes, they had a replica Millennium Falcon on the ship.
Rachel and Sam heading into hyperdrive and fighting with Ewoks against the Imperial Forces.
Dave and I about to head into hyperdrive. And yes, there were kids waiting to fly the Millennium Falcon and yes, Dave and I really wanted a turn! Hahahahahahaha!!!
Pepe's door (from The Muppets) is a feature of the Disney Dream (and will show up later in my cruise recap) and relaxing in a porthole seat is always so fun!
For the first time ever, we checked out the spa open house and were very tempted to spend $170 each to be able to relax on these heated stone loungers whenever we wanted. We didn't spend the money but trust me, these loungers are super comfortable :)
More "we're so excited to be on the ship" selfies!
And Rachel celebrated by doing handstands in the mini golf course.
(Again, you'll see more of this later.)
The Sail Away party was pretty fun, although the music wasn't as good as it has been at previous parties.
Finally heading out to sea!!!
Our first supper was at Enchanted Garden. This was a new to us restaurant and very pretty. However, none of our nights had dining room shows which I missed from our previous cruises. One thing I will remember from this cruise is how much we laughed as a family at suppers. That was so fun!!!
Small details from The Enchanted Garden. The middle picture is the lights.
Not only was this a Disney cruise, but we also had a Marvel Day at Sea. (Yes, that's why we spent a lot of January and February watching Marvel movies. Yes, I am done with them now!) This was a backdrop for pictures.
The kids didn't really want to meet characters, but Rachel really enjoyed meeting Pluto the first night.
There are "hidden Mickeys" all over the ship and I thought this one (I think it's in an elevator cage) was really fun!
 
So that was our day boarding the Disney Dream, discovering some fun things about it, and getting excited to sail away!

Monday, March 18, 2024

Flowers And Fun In Fort Lauderdale

I'm back at work today after a week and a half off, but I'm going to be reminiscing about our amazing trip for awhile! We left for our March Break trip a couple of days early as we booked a cruise, and the one we liked best left on the Friday our break officially started. We wanted to get to our embarkation port a few days early, so late Wednesday night, we flew into Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Thursday we had all day to explore.

We had only one thing booked this day, as well as a few things we hoped to check out, so we started off by walking to a main area in Fort Lauderdale, Las Olas Boulevard. It took us a little over an hour to walk to our first destination and we enjoyed not only stretching our legs but also enjoying the warmth and seeing the sights.
I had read about Ann's Florist & Coffee Bar online and I absolutely wanted to check it out. On one side is a florist shop and on the other is a cafe/bar. We ate lunch here and it was so beautiful. We had a counter spot looking into the florist shop. The empanadas were really good and the pastries were delicious! This was a stop solely for me and I loved it so much!!!
There was a store on we passed on Las Olas Boulevard which had huge statues. We briefly considered buying this Hulk one as it had been reduced in price to only $60,000! Hahaha! We enjoyed looking around this store.
The only thing we had booked for this day was a tour of the Fort Lauderdale waterways. We took a Carrie B Cruise and really enjoyed it. We got to see many expensive homes right on the water and even got attacked by pirates! It was supposed to be somewhat rainy this day but one of the only times we got wet was waiting to board this boat!
We cruised past the port we were sailing out of the next day and Rachel realized one of her classmates was on the ship we passed on our tour! She SnapChatted him and he sent her a picture of his view from the boat. It was pretty hilarious! Also, the house in the middle is based on Harry Pottter's house from the movies, cost $28 million, and was a wedding present for someone's niece. Let's just say our wedding gifts were not quite so elaborate!!!
See, I told you we got chased by pirates! Hahaha!!!
We enjoyed trying to spot gekkos, or iguanas, or whatever it was we saw running all over the place in Fort Lauderdale. Sam was the best at spotting them.
We made it to the ocean!!! Since we were staying in a hotel, we had no towels, and we knew we were getting other beach days, so we didn't plan on swimming. We enjoyed walking along the shoreline though.
So happy to be at the ocean and not at work or school!!!
A picture of Sam and I strolling the beach to show Sam was there too! He doesn't love being in pictures anymore which I think is pretty typical for teenagers. And no, he is NOT taller than me (yet). We measure almost every day because he's very close.
A playful ray which was swimming along beside us for awhile. We enjoyed walking in the water until we saw him and then we gave him some extra space! You can see his tail coming out of the waves in the middle photo so he was pretty close.
 
After about an hour at the ocean, it started raining and we had to wait quite awhile for an Uber back to our hotel. We'd hoped to eat a nice dinner on the beach but we were all exhausted after a long day of walking and exploring so we headed back to our hotel and ate at the McDonald's across the street. Not quite the nice seafood, ocean view dinner I'd hoped for. Hahaha!
 
That night I was asleep by 7pm, Dave was asleep by about 7:45, and we have no idea when the kids fell asleep. But we'd had a great day exploring Fort Lauderdale.