Disney Cruise Part 1

With Facebook, Google+ or whatever other social networking sites there are out there, I figured updating this blog is not worth for the 1 person who reads it - myself. Ok maybe that's not true. Maybe my wife reads it too. Sometimes.

Not until last night when I wanted to show Rafael some photos of our trip to the Philippines in 2010, did I realize it's nice to be able to remember important events in our lives. In Facebook, posts regarding that trip had been drowned by more recent ones. Though photos remain, the story behind the trip is lost forever.

So here's an epic (i mean long) post of our recent Disney Cruise - our longest vacation in years (7 days!). It felt longer than that due to the months of anticipation. We had actually planned this about a year ago with our good friends Mike and Lyndee. It turned out that their family was planning one too for their reunion. We decided to join them as we were sure we would rock the boat (or ship) out not only with our numbers but with the kids that we have.

We could feel the excitement building weeks before our departure. Tens of emails were exchanged to plan for the island excursions. Lyndee, our resident travel agent sent us valuable tips on what to bring.

So finally, on September 21st, our trip commenced. It started out with an early 5 something hour flight to Orlando from where we had to spend the night. The cruise ship was scheduled to leave the following day at 4 PM and there was no flight early enough to reach Orlando before the ship sails away. We met up with the Reyeses at the airport.

It was an early flight. You could tell from our eyes.

He couldn't wait for our plane to leave

We got ourselves a nice room at the Residence Inn near the airport at a special rate. A huge shout out to Lyndee's cuz-in-law Archie. Too bad we only stayed for a night.

It had a separate bedroom

I could stay here for days

The next day, we drove our rented van to pick up the Reyeses at the airport hotel then headed to Port Canaveral. We decided to drive there ourselves to save some $$$. Annika and Rafael were seated at the back and hit it off instantly. Getting to the port is around a 45-minute drive from the airport. Just as the Disney Cruise ship came into view from Florida State Road 528, we were just in awe with the enormity of it.

Registration was quick and painless. We paused for photos at almost every corner. Disney had a a team of photographers situated before boarding the ship. Right when we boarded, we were greeted by the ship's crew complete with an announcement of our names: "Friends, let's welcome, the Estimo Family". Right away you felt special eventhough they did this for the hundreds of other fams boarding the ship. Just the same you already had a glimpse of what the 7 days were going to be like.