What to take on a Disney Cruise (or any cruise for that matter)...

There are SOOO many cruise list out there and I am doing this so that I can remember the "extras" we brought!  I have my mom to thank for most of these--she researched and then ordered on Amazon!  

One of our friends went about a year ago and said that they had little happies each night from "Mickey".  We loved that idea and copied it!  My sister had someone make these precious tags for each night.  Night one we did pajamas from Target--I loved the girls rompers and they boys glowed in the dark.  Fun!!! Other things we did--Disney toothbrushes, playing cards, coloring book (or word search) and crayons for the trip home, gummy snacks.  Only the pajamas cost more than a dollar, but the kids really looked froward to seeing what was left for them!

The rooms on a cruise are small--but they are very doable.  You can see magnets on the back of the doors.  They liked playing with those and moving them around.  This shoe holder was a big help.  There were two hooks that were in the room and I just used pipe clears and tied the hanger onto the hooks.   You can see I stored all sorts of stuff in them.

This clothes organizer was also very helpful.  I wish I had taken a picture on day 1 when it was still neat!  There were plenty of coat hangers in the room and I hung all of my clothes.  I hung this clothes organizer just over the rack and each kid had two shelves for their clothes.

These big clips were also a help!  Especially when we were at the pool on top of the boat--it was rather windy up there.

We had two drying ropes in our bathroom--but the clothespins were great.  I could hang a lot more clothes on them then I could if I had to drape them over the rope.

This tiny bathroom fan was also great.  It had a USB charger and I just plugged it into my phone charger.  We left it running a lot and I know it helped with humidity and clothes drying.

 These were fun for the doors.  This is definitely not a must but it is fun and helpful to make sure you are going into the correct room!  

On a side note they have something called fish extenders.  Its where you can sign up and do happies for others on the boat.  You leave a special thing on your door.  I am sooooo glad we didn't do this!  It gets expensive and is a time waster!

I was also glad to have this plug--you can't have a surge protector, but that was allowed.    Also, the lanyards were very helpful--and we were glad to have a few extras because one of mine lost his a few times!  Mine clipped on and the kids went around their necks.

As far as clothing...I didn't think I over packed.  I was actually kind of proud of myself.  We only had 4 bags between the 5 of us.  However, I still packed too much.  We went from swimsuits to dinner clothes.  Only once did we wear shorts and a shirt.

Day 4

Apparently Day 4 was so fun and relaxing that I didn't even take many pictures!  Since we had been busy the past two days at islands, Sam was chomping at the bit to get into the Star Wars room.  He literally spent hours in there--from like 11:15-3:30.  He wouldn't even come out for lunch!   He even got to do the Jedi training! The rest of us spent the day riding the aquaduct (the slide), swimming, and reading!  It was a great last day!

I thought this was really cool.  This was the hand washing station that you had to use to enter the kids area.  You just stuck your hands in and water and soap came out!  It took like 20 seconds.

This kid loved to sit and look out the port holes.

Night 4s creation--we decided this was a pig????  Plus we got extra chocolate!

All the kids in their pajamas from Mickey.

On the morning we were leaving, Zeb and I got up early to watch the sunrise!  We were already docked at Port Canaveral.  

One last picture!

There's always time for a sword battle.

The last time they could order whatever they wanted.

I had to take a picture of this--my dad ate lox every single morning!

And here's the picture that I couldn't find when we ate lunch with Mr. John and Mrs. Flo!

  For Day 1

For Day 2

End of Day 1 and Day 2

When I uploaded my pictures they got all out of order!  Ahhh!  

Watching the sunset from My May and Bo Bo's balcony.

Dinner on the cruise was amazing!  Sammy and Dax were our waiters and they waited on us each night!  On Disney cruises they assign you a restaurant to go to each night--but the wait staff rotates with you!  They had our drinks waiting on us when we arrived each night!  And they cut up my kids steak-or pancakes--or whatever!!  We had full conversations without having to get up! 

I think overall this was everyone's favorite dinner.

And my birthday got celebrated!

The waiters also had puzzles and mind games for each night.

After dinner we had an impromptu dance party in the lobby.

Leigh was excited about her pajamas from Mickey!  

Day 2

Breakfast

On this day we were at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas.  We made the most of this day and did more slides than you can even count!

It didn't take long for Sam to get in vacation mode.

This slide was so quick I couldn't even get a picture!  It was fun because you could race your friend.

 The most memorable part of this day I didn't even get a picture of because my camera would have gotten wet.  Our family of 5 went off to find the lazy river as soon as we got there so we could get comfortable and get the lay of the land.  One of the workers pointed the way for us and we went!  We got on at a very calm part of the river--little did we know that we got on the Rapids River.  Of course we didn't know this at the time and we started calling it the "Crazy Lazy"--ha!  It definitely was a Rapids River.  We rounded the first corner to a gush of water and Leigh went flying off her raft!  I was holding on to Sam's float at the time and after that I had  a death grip on him  (the next day my left arm was sore!) We ended up having a great time on it and went back to get the other 7 members of my family!  We laughed and laughed and laughed. The second time around Sam went flying off his raft (Zeb had him :)).  I was so proud though because he just kept swimming and didn't panic!

hanging out under the waterfall

lunch was included in the package that we bought

Since we planned the cruise so last minute we had to get the late dinner at 8:15 and the show at 6:00. Let me tell you we ended up loving this and will pick this if we ever do a cruise again!  We played hard all day and then came back about 4 and gave the kids showers.  I ordered room service so they could have a heavy snack.  Then they took an hour or hour and a half nap on our bed.  (We could pull the curtain closed and then we could get ready.)  This is a picture of Sam UNDER our bed--y'all--we could NOT wake him up!  Zeb was rolling his head back and forth.  It was so funny!

After naps and before the show we headed up for an ice cream cone!  This always made sleepy people wake up happy!  They each had one or two ice cream cones each night before dinner!

The show the second night was "Villan's Tonight".  This was probably my least favorite, but it was still good.

We had some time to watch a bit of the movie at the pool before dinner.

And had some time for more dancing.

Looking sharp in their matching Wal-Mart outfits.

They would take a real picture only with the promise of a silly picture.

Animator's Palace was our dinner place for nights two and three.  The menu was different each night. I think my favorite thing I ate all week was from here--truffle gnocchi!

another puzzle

At the end of the night we had an elephant (and chocolate) waiting on us!

For Day 1 of the Disney Cruise