We just returned a few days ago from our first Disney cruise!  It was the best vacation ever.  We spent 7 nights on the Disney Magic in the Western Caribbean.  The boys even said that they liked it better than Disney World and Disneyland.  Everything was fabulous - the food, the entertainment, the service.  And there was something for everyone.  I'll write more about other parts of our trip, but for now I'll start at the beginning.

Probably my least favorite part of the whole trip was packing. I found it very stressful to oversee packing for six, including a toddler. Instead of just telling everyone how many days of clothes they needed to throw in their bags, we had to make sure everyone had casual clothes for daytime, clothes for dinner at night, casual and dress shoes, swim suits, candy for the cast members, and all of our FE stuff. (I'll blog more about what FE's, or fish extenders, are in a later post.) Then we weren't sure it would all fit in the car. It would have been close to impossible to fly with all that we had packed. But once we were on our way I was really excited!

We drove down to Houston the day before the cruise and stayed at my parents' house. My mom drove us to Galveston Saturday morning and dropped us off at Terminal 2. It worked out great since it was raining, and we didn't have to worry about parking. We arrived about 11:00 and check in was very easy. Our boarding group was 6, and our boarding time was 11:30. I took Luke to see Minnie Mouse in the terminal, and I was happy to see that he liked her and wasn't going to be scared of the characters on board.  Before we knew it they had called group 6 and we walked on board. It was so exciting as we walked in with our matching t-shirts on and they announced our name and clapped for us.

Next we went to the Topsiders buffet for lunch. After we ate I took Luke to see the nursery, which he loved, and Michael to the Oceaneer Lab (for ages 3-10) to get his wristband for the week.  My husband took Zack to the Edge (for tweens) and Nick to the Vibe (teens).  Our rooms were ready by 1:30, so we started to unpack, decorate our doors and settle in. We were in rooms 2012 and 2013, across the hall from each other.

We had just enough time for Luke to get a nap in before the mandatory boat drill, and then we went straight up to deck 10 to get a spot for the sail away party. The rain had stopped, and the party was really fun - lots of dancing and singing. We even saw some dolphins as we were leaving.  By about 4:30 we were on our way out of Galveston Bay and toward the Western Caribbean!