Reagan National
March 23, 2018 Spring Break Cruise, Part 1: Planning
The Disney Cruise Line Spring 2018 itineraries were released near the end of October 2016. We started scanning them as soon as they came out because we knew our Spring break trip for that year would be a DCL cruise. We eventually decided to go back on the Magic as a follow up from our Christmas Cruise planned for December 2017. The cruise we selected was a 5 night Bahamian cruise that left from Miami with stops at Key West, Nassau, and Castaway Cay. We had previously sailed to Key West on the Wonder and loved the port. We were also excited because there would be a sea day after Castaway Cay. All of our other cruises spent the last full day at Castaway Cay, which kind of made the stop bitter sweet.
Christmas 2017 Trip – Part 7 WDW Visit 2
Hollywood Studios
After our Christmas cruise was done, we headed back up to Orlando and Hollywood Studios. We noticed it was a bit cool when we got off the ship in Miami. Once we arrived in Orlando, we realized it was a lot colder than we had anticipated. A cold front had moved in between the time we had left on the ship and when we returned. Unfortunately, having come from the Caribbean, we weren’t prepared (or dressed for) cool weather. We didn’t want to let it interfere with our visit to Hollywood Studios, but it definitely helped convince us to spend a shorter amount of time there. We used our three FastPasses that I had setup for the afternoon. We also spent some time in the Star Wars Launch Bay, mainly trying to stay warm. When we headed to Star Tours to use our fast passes, Nancy headed over to the Baseline Tap House, which is in the old Writer’s Stop location, and got a flight of beers and cider.
Dream Cruise – Part 1 – Planning
We usually plan our travel 18 months or so in advance. We look at school calendars, compare prices, and then book a trip. In the case of our February 2017 cruise on the Disney Dream, almost none of this happened (we did look at the school calendar). Here is how our cruise came together.
Star Wars Cruise – Part 2, Travel
January 13, 2017 finally arrived and it was time to head off for our Star Wars Cruise! Our plan was to pick the kids up from school, let them get changed, then head off to the airport. Once we had the house squared away, a friend drove us from our house to Reagan National Airport. We arrived at the airport really early (as we always do), around 5 PM. We dropped our bags off with American Airlines and headed through security. Our experience with TSA Security is usually fantastic thanks to having TSA PreCheck! Everyone has TSA PreCheck in our family except our youngest daughter (who now has Global Entry).
Star Wars Cruise – Part 1, Planning
Our 7 Night Eastern Caribbean Star Wars Day At Sea cruise on the Disney Fantasy didn’t start out as one of our normal cruises. As we discussed in our post about planning an off season cruise, we had originally planned to book our standard spring break cruise for 2017, but finances got in the way. We instead picked a different destination for spring break, and in October 2015 we booked what we thought would be a standard 7 night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy. In January 2016, Disney announced new Star Wars Day At Sea cruises for 7 night sailings on the Disney Fantasy — and in March 2016, we received notification that our cruise had been switched to the Star Wars theme. Interestingly, the price of the cruise almost immediately went up by 50%. We weren’t upset that it got changed, but I probably never would have booked it for that price, even with the Star Wars addition.
Hawaii Trip – Travel – Part 4
Planning 1 | Planning 2 | Planning 3 | Travel | Disneyland (Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4) | Arrival | Surfing | Aulani | Excursion | Hyatt