Let me start by giving a little preface. We are a family of 4. Myself (34), DW (28), DD (7) and DS (4). DW and I have been on 2 carnival cruises prior to this one. We decided to leave the kiddos home for this trip and they were happy to stay with nana and pap for the week. Nana and pap were happy to take them and make sure DD got to/from school with no problems. Nana and pap have 3 german shepards and 13 puppies. Ds loved the oppurtunity to "help" with them care for the dogs.

Being in the cold and snowy northeast and with vacation scheduling being stricter this year at my job I was forced to take vacation earlier then I had hoped. If I'm going to be on vacation when it's cold I want to cruise! I started researching cruises in January and booked this cruise at the end of January. DW knew nothing about it until it was booked so she couldn't object LOL. It made for a nice surprise and a great chance for the 2 of us to get some "us" time. With working 2 different shifts and the kiddos we don't see much alone time and value every second we can get.

Since we were flying I packed and repacked about a dozen times to get our luggage down to JUST carry on size. I have a phobia of cruising with no clothing! We managed to go with 2 carry on luggage bags and a back pack! Packing for the kiddos wasn't so successful. I'm sure nana and pap's neighbors thought they were moving in. Read more