Disney Cruise Day 2: All Aboard!

When I left off last week on our recent Disney Cruise Line vacation, we had eaten breakfast at Port Orleans French Quarter and were waiting on the Disney Cruise Line bus to arrive to take us to the port.

Something to consider if you're planning on taking Disney transportation is the fact that they don't pick you up very early to bring you to the port. Traditional resort transportation won't arrive until 11:30 a.m. or later, which puts you getting to the port around 1 p.m. or later. For this trip specifically, it was closer to 2 p.m. for us. Now, if you'd rather not fight the port crowds, then this isn't a huge deal. BUT, if you like to board the ship early, eat lunch, explore, or even add an itinerary item, this becomes a bit of a bigger deal.

Anyway, our bus arrived at our resort at 12:10 p.m. and after a quick stop to pick up more cruisers from Old Key West, we were off!

For those of you who miss the classic, original Mickey cartoons, they still play them on the bus and I might have been a little happier than I should have been to see them.

The ride to the port was super smooth without any traffic, delays, or issues.

There she is!

Check in was super smooth. We didn't have much of a line and we were on the ship in record time!

Side note, if you have the Disney Cruise Line app, lots of fun things happen on your official sailing date!

 After a quick greeting in the lobby, we headed over to Cabana's for lunch!

I absolutely love the look and feel of the Disney ships. They are just so classy and timeless!

Lunch was extra delicious...and so was dessert! :)

By the time we finished eating, we realized our rooms had been ready for a little while, so we headed that way to drop off our carryons. I also facetimed my dad and brother to show them our room.

It was a beautiful day for sailing!

Our muster drill took place on the promenade deck and this was our first time to ever be placed outside for one of these. Although the day was beautiful, it was HOT.

As soon as the muster drill was over, we made a bee-line for deck 12 for the Sailing Away party! One of my favorite parts of any Disney Cruise is hearing the horn on that first day...it's the perfect way to begin a Disney cruise!

Mickey and friends had to join in the festivities, too!

Off we go!

This cruise was a little different for us in a few ways, too.  Apparently DCL was trying out a few "new" things and one of those was to change the show times up a little on port days, so those with late dining had a little extra time to get ready for the show before dinner. To be honest, I loved it! Also, instead of a different show every night, they basically had three main shows that were shown twice each throughout the cruise (Aladdin, Disney Wishes, and Disney Believe), plus one night of Christopher Robin. I also liked this as well as it gave us three "off" nights to do whatever we pleased.

Anyway, our first night on board was spent in an animation class since we can't do this at Walt Disney World anymore!

Our characters were Chip and Dale and for my serious lack of artistic talent (it's bad, y'all), I didn't think they turned out half bad!

Dinner on our first night was in Animator's Palate. I tried the Tuna Steak and really liked it! They also served Butternut Squash Soup which is a Cruise Line favorite of mine.

Dessert was delicious, too!

After dinner, we spent a little time in the adult only area before calling it a night.

We had a great first day on board the Disney Fantasy and were looking forward to all the fun to come!

Stay tuned for more from our 2018 Disney Fantasy Eastern Caribbean August Sailing! :)

Weekend Recap - Birthdays, Family Time, & Yummy Food!

Although this past weekend had a lot going on, I didn't plan much of it and just decided to go with the flow and see what happened! It was so much fun!

For starters, my sinus episode did not get better, it got worse and by Saturday morning, I couldn't breathe through my nose. A little sudafed helped somewhat, but needless to say, I decided not to run at all. I am feeling a little better this morning but I have a doctor appointment this afternoon after work, so we shall see what he has to say.

On Friday afternoon, I took Brayden in for another haircut. His hair grows so dang fast and he had his 18 month pictures scheduled for the following day!

My dad's birthday is this week, so we celebrated with my brother and his wife on Friday night.

I had to laugh at Brayden's fortune!

Happy birthday, Poppy!

Brayden's fall pictures/18 month pictures took place on Saturday morning. He was in a super happy mood and did SO well! We also took the pictures at an antique store that's owned by Jason's uncle & his wife.  The old cars and props were perfect for the images...I can't wait to see how they turned out!

This cracked me up - he was supposed to be taking his Saturday afternoon nap, so when I heard the sounds of his baby piano on the monitor, I knew something was up! Apparently he decided that his toys were way more fun than a nap.

Once he fell asleep, I left him in Jason's care and headed to a local build-your-own salad place for lunch with my sister in law. It was such a gorgeous day, we sat outside to eat!

After lunch, we walked next door for coffee at PJ's and sat outside again! It really was a lovely afternoon!

Jason's grandfather and sister will be celebrating birthdays this upcoming week too, so we had dinner with them at a local Seafood restaurant on Saturday night! I had the shrimp and crab gumbo and it was SO good!

Happy birthday, grandpa!

Sunday was very low key, with a trip to church, lunch after, and taking care of a few odds and ends around the house that evening. Breakfast began with Mickey waffles and coffee, and I reminded myself that it wouldn't be much longer before I was eating Mickey waffles every day for breakfast! YES!

On Sunday evening, I had the opportunity to record a podcast with Relay for Life! I recently served on a 5K work group initiative where we created a Relay 5K packet on how to put a 5K together from start to finish, so they had me on to discuss our work. I was honored they asked if I would be on their podcast!

The rest of the weekend was spent getting things together for our upcoming vacay. I can't wait!!

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! Happy Monday!

Food Truck Invasion

Hello there and happy Thursday!

This week has been a great one thus far and I'm even more excited for the weekend as it includes time with friends!

On Monday, I was asked to help out in another area of oncology that I'm not as familiar with as the one I work in now. It was a great learning experience and I enjoyed seeing another side of what we all do to help our patients!

This week, the cafeteria at work has been out of service, so they lined up a bunch of local food trucks to serve us each day! Before you roll your eyes at me, please know that I live in a small town in Louisiana and the food truck phenomenon didn't hit us until literally within the past two years. Since that time, it seems as if EVERYONE has jumped on board the food truck bandwagon, and we had a variety of foods to choose from this week (from BBQ to Thai and everything in between)!

My week started off with Garden Path Groceries. They are known for having healthier food options and they were only going to be around on Monday, so I went with them.

This chicken salad sandwich was amazing, but I honestly should have ordered a salad bowl instead. Oh well....just means I'll need to go back!

On Tuesday, the food from the Rib Shack BBQ truck smelled SO good, we were willing to stand out in the rain to order it!

This truck had a really cool setup - their smoker is on the back of their truck inside of a cage so they can travel with it! I do believe this was one of the best pulled pork sandwiches I've ever had!

So far though, my favorite has been The Sloppy Taco. They were one of the first food trucks to make their way into my town and somehow, I'd never tried their food!

These tacos look sloppy because they are! I ordered the Al Pastor with pork and pineapples as well as the original Sloppy Taco with beef and shrimp. I also bought a few home for Jason to try and he is hooked, too!

Another favorite find this week was the Peppermint Mocha creamer! I was so excited to see it and snagged one of the last bottles! Now if fall would only hurry up and get here...

You know I can't write a post without mentioning my silly kid! Well, he decided he wanted to start playing peek-a-boo on his own this week....and this was the result. What, you don't smash your face in to hide your eyes when you play peek-a-boo?

 

Source

This week, we've also been attempting to catch up on season 6 of Once Upon A Time. We somehow got incredibly behind and only watched the first episode. As a fun build up to our cruise, we are trying to finish the entire season before we leave. We shall see if that happens or not!

Stay tuned for a look at all of the fun items inside the August PopSugar Must Have Box! It's their birthday month (and mine too), so I'm looking forward to celebrating with them!! :)

Have a great day!

Disney's Skipper Canteen

Hi there and welcome back to another Wordless Wednesday.

Today's theme is centered around food - Disney food!

Each trip (along with visiting old favorites) we always try to pick a new (to us) restaurant that we've never experienced before. While there in February for the Princess Half Marathon, we decided to give the Skipper Canteen at Disney's Magic Kingdom a try.

While I won't give the food gushing reviews, I loved the themeing and the atmosphere of the restaurant! Would I eat there again? Probably not as it didn't top our list of favorites, but it was fun to experience at least once! 

Today’s Wordless Wednesday theme is: Food
Host: Deb at Focused on the Magic

In the end, we opted not to order a dessert as we really wanted to move over to EPCOT for a cronut (hello)! My mom and dad did receive a cute little Happy Anniversary dessert as they were celebrating their 40th Wedding Anniversary while on this trip!

As I mentioned earlier, we liked the atmosphere, wait staff, and themeing of the Skipper Canteen, but we didn't care so much for the food. I get what they were trying to create with the menu, but it didn't really cater to our individual tastes. It was fun to try at least once, though!

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Have you tried the Skipper Canteen? What were your thoughts?