Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

Who wouldn't love an upgrade? Moving from an interior stateroom to a verandah or from a verandah to a concierge suite doesn't have to be only a Dream.  Live the dream. Upgrading is easier than you think! The question, of course, is when and how exactly to score an upgrade. Before the Sail Date There are two ways to score an upgrade in advance of packing your bags. 1.) Pixie Dust! Imagine logging in to your reservation one day and the stateroom number doesn't match your memories. You go to look up if they've moved you down the hall to an identical porthole room. No, the room is up a deck and seems to be a verandah stateroom. That can't be right. That's not what you paid for so you call up Disney Cruise Line only to find out "Surprise!" they've sprinkled pixie dust on your stateroom and you will be enjoying ocean breezes from the privacy of your very own verandah at no additional cost. More often you will shift staterooms to one withi...

Kylee and I parted ways with Ben and Chris in front of Mount Rustmore.  As the sun began to lower behind our friends. Kylee cried for a minute or two when she realized Ben and Chris wouldn't be at the cabana the remainder of the afternoon. Then she realized that meant she got a whole cabana almost entirely to herself. Yes, Chris went back to the ship without his sneakers. Boys. I told her she could play in the sand for a bit while I gathered up the remainder of our sandals and scooped them into our beach bag. Everything ready for our last minute departure of the cabana, with the exception of our IDs in the room safe. I laid out our dry clothes and towels so that once we were good and dry we could take the time to get redressed to go back to the ship. I decided to pop out on the porch, let Kylee swim and I could snap some pictures.  So peaceful. See how they are drilling with the lifeboat at midship? Unfortunately this is when everything fell apart. Almos...

After taking their sweet time settling down to bed the night before, I was quite startled when Kylee woke up at four in the morning. Eastern Standard Time. When we're from the Central Time Zone. Well anyways, we were up. Chris stayed asleep, so I let Kylee crawl in on my side of the bed hoping that everyone else could stay asleep and maybe I could get some winks in too. By five-thirty it became painfully obvious that Kylee wasn't going to go back to sleep, so we grabbed her "embarkation day" Ziploc bag. (We always pack full outfits for the kids together with bows and accessories to make it easy to hand out clothes for the day.) While Kylee brushed her hair, I took a quick shower. Since we were still on the dark o'clock side of things, I dressed and got ready for the day because Kylee loves watching me get ready and it keeps her calm and quiet. Deluxe King Hyatt Regency-pardon the mess Ben admitted defeat and dressed as well and last of all, Chris rustled...