Disney Dream Cruise & Disney World!

This summer we were very blessed to be taken on a family cruise by Wes’s parents along with his siblings and their family.

We had such an amazing time and the girls were thrilled to meet all the various Disney characters! The cruise provided endless activities and food (and was excellent with its gluten free options!) We highly recommend trying them for yourself!

The cast-off party!

Holly by the boat’s “mascot”

There’s so many pictures, and so much I could say but I tried to keep it fairly organized and down to one post for anyone researching this for themselves 🙂

FINE DINING

There were usually a lot of activities going on, but the cruise was careful to coordinate all our dinners together so we always got to for sure see each other at the end of the day! Each dinner had several courses, and they were all delicious.

: Pirate Night! We somehow missed the memo about checking ahead for the daily themes so we improvised.

: Animator’s Palace. Probably my favorite of the restaurants… so much to look at, and even interact with

: sweet cousins keeping each other entertained

: Wes’s parents celebrating their anniversary!

rockin’ the Anna dress

posing with Aunt Holly

FUN ON DECK

After the dinners was our time to watch the “show.” We weren’t allowed to take any pictures once they started, but we snuck in this one in 😉

The main deck of the cruise featured some pretty sweet looking water slides, but all our kiddos were to small for that. Instead they had fun at Nemo’s Reef {well, the potty-trained ones did anyways}

In addition to the “dinner” restaurants, there was a ton of other options all day across the ship. Here I had just polished off my own gluten free pizza!

MEETING THE CHARACTERS

We had a blast meeting all of the different characters on board… especially the princesses! I would have needed a separate post to do all the pictures individually, so instead I took a couple of screen shots from a memory book I’m working on…. not super clear, but I think you can still “get the picture” (pun definitely intended)

NASSAU

Our first stop was at Nassau Island. There were a lot of options for this day, including tons of shopping, but we opted to go the “Discover Atlantis” route. This gave us access to the beach, pools, and their huge underwater aquarium! I took a TON of pictures of the aquarium and “ruins,” but paired it down to just a few for this post. It was pretty rainy that day, but Disney provided us with glamorous ponchos to keep us dry… they actually worked pretty well considering all the walking we had to do!

little girl held on tight on our shuttle to Atlantis!

Pause in rain = photo op w/ship!

Deb & Matt

A view of the resort from our shuttle

CASTAWAY CAY

We didn’t get a ton of pictures here, but Castaway Cay (pronounced “key”) is Disney’s own island! We utilized the beach and splash pad and enjoyed lunch on the island. There were lots of other activities available such as snorkeling and an “adult only” section… but we were content to just relax with the girls that day.

DISNEY WORLD

We had an extra day between the cruise and our flight home, so all of us (minus Jesse/Hannah & kids) decided to do Disney World for a day! It was much faster pace than the cruise and honestly something we probably won’t try again until our kiddos are older. It was still a lot of fun and we managed to sneak in a few pictures along the way.

riding in the teacups with daddy!

Wes’s mom & sister 🙂

Probably one of my favorite pictures from the trip, even though it isn’t that clear. She was sooo sweet and shy with “Ariel” and it was obvious how happy she was to be meeting her. Maybe the “setting” here seemed more real than the ship’s Ariel to her?

Definitely the highlight of our summer! I’m hoping to get more organized and maybe even print out some pictures of the girls with the princesses for their room… but that may be a while. In the mean time, the memories are still pretty fresh! This was for sure an experience we’d love to have again some day.