Vacation-ville!

About a year and a half ago my husband's side of the family started talking about a vacation, all the family together. That would be AB's dad and stepmom and their total of 8 kids combined with their respective families! In the end three kids from each side (6 kids) with their families attended a 7-Day Eastern Caribbean Disney cruise! We counted down, we planned, we bought loads of stuff that all the blogs and Pinterest tell us we have to have on a Disney cruise. Then magically, the day arrived.

So if you are planning a cruise and decide to go over a holiday - like Thanksgiving - good to check prices of the airline tickets! We started checking about 8 months in advance and I suddenly felt sick. I fly a lot and had plenty of miles for at least a couple tickets. But not at the crazy prices I was seeing to get us down the day before the cruise and back the day after. We started broadening our search and went from tickets for $1800 a piece to $399 each (or 30K miles). Sold - two purchased tickets and three mileage tickets. Yay. We would put the money that would be spent on those crazy expensive tickets towards the expenses on a now 2 week vacation. 

Our plans: 

Fly on the Wednesday before the Saturday cruise departure.

Spend two days at Universal Orlando (YES! We love this place.)

Drive from Orlando on Friday to Port Canaveral, Florida that Friday.

Spend the night and depart on cruise Saturday.

7 Days Easter Caribbean

-2 days at sea

-St. Maarten

-St. Thomas

-Thanksgiving day at sea

-Castaway Cay (the Disney island)

-Back to Orlando

Saturday depart from ship and drive to Orlando - Port Orleans Riverside

Hollywood Studios

Magic Kingdom

Epcot

Boom Done. Fly Home

So my plans, instead of doing one humongous blog, split it into three. Universal, the Cruise and then Disney after. Or maybe it will be Universal and Disney after and then the Cruise separate. Well whatever  that ends up making sense.