If you want to start this series from the beginning, click here.
Well I seem to have hit a road block in my unpacking journey. For the first 2 weeks, I was eager and motivated and very productive. Now I have just run out of steam. I am in the final stretch and having a hard time finding the motivation to finish. Does this ever happen you any of you? I think maybe if plan a party or something than it would force me to finish, but then I think about how stressed it would make me and I scratch the idea. Plus, we don’t know enough people here yet to even have a party. I need to think of a way to hold myself accountable and make decent progress every day, but I just haven’t thought of a way yet. Any suggestions are welcome.
Anyway, back to cruise preparations. Since I haven’t been spending a whole lot of time on the house, I have managed to get some cruise prep done. I have managed to check 2 more items off of my list: make a packing list and plan a surprise for the kids.
Let’s talk about the surprise first. I am not the type of person that can keep an entire vacation a secret from my kids, but I do like to surprise them with things so I usually try to think of something to do either during or right before the cruise. This time I came up with the idea of surprising them at Castaway Cay with this:
My 9 year old has been dying to parasail for a long time now (she is a total thrill-seeker) and she is finally old enough so I made reservations for us to parasail at Castaway Cay! I plan to keep it a secret for as long as possible and I can’t wait to see their reaction. I think it will be a good one!
I also got started on my packing list. I will no doubt add to it over the next 3 months but this is what I have so far. I like to divide items into categories:
I still pack for my kids for big vacations like this, but I don’t pack for my husband so his stuff is not on here. I also noted which items need to go in my carry-on bag vs. a suitcase. This is about the time that I start to slowly gather items that I know I will not use between now and the cruise and put them all together – usually in a box in my closet. I don’t really like packing, and this spreads out the work a little and it is nice to already have a lot of the items together once I am ready to fill the suitcases. You can read my other posts about packing for a cruise by clicking here.
I have one more thing I want to share with you today. A sweet reader who recently returned from a Disney cruise to Alaska sent me this gift:
You may already know this, but I LOVE Tervis cups and buy every DCL one that I see. Since I have never cruised to Alaska, I haven’t had a chance to add this one to my collection yet so I am thrilled! Thank you Megan for being so thoughtful! The item on the left side of the photo is a custom itinerary that she had made for her family for the cruise. There were 14 of them sailing together (in the Walt and Roy suites – lucky!!!) and she made this to coordinate everyone’s schedules. I think it is genius! Check it out:
With this itinerary, everyone knew not only where they needed to be, but also where everyone else was at any given time. I also love that she included information like how to dress and important phone numbers. I think this is such a great idea!
Up next: Preparing for Cruise #7 Part 4
Don’t forget to like me on Facebook (click here) and follow me on Pinterest (click here) for all of the latest Disney Cruise Mom Blog updates!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.