I'm Sailing! I sail! I'm a sailor!

Sunday morning Monte and I embarked on our second cruise vacation, and if I wasn't hooked on cruises the first time we sailed last November, I am officially addicted now. Monte earned this vacation as part of a promotion at work and it was for a Disney Cruise for a family of four. We tried to go with our family of 4--with Molly and Maggie, but they are the farthest things from "service animals" so we were not allowed to include them- ha! So, of course we invited our best buds, Jon and Rachael! We sailed for 4 nights from Port Canaveral to Nassau Bahamas and then on to Disney's private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay. All four of us had prepared ourselves to be overwhelmed by crying babies, screaming toddlers, and Disney Characters interfering with our relaxing vacation...and we were all dead wrong. Disney Cruises do an unbelievable job of separating the adult-only areas such as "Quiet Cove" pools, bars, restaurants, from the family and children areas (which we called poop/pee pool, crying cave, brat bistro, etc). The ship itself was gorgeous and immaculately clean, and the staff (which we found out there were 950 of them) was extremely friendly and helpful. We just had a fantastic time. Since we were in one of the few suites, from the moment we stepped on the boat we were given the red-carpet treatment and whisked through the line and past security and right to our gigantic stateroom. Monte and I thought we were pretty lucky on our first cruise to have a window to at least see the light of day, and this time we were blown away by our 2 bedroom suite with dining, bar, huge balcony, and a concierge team assigned to our room. Colin and Rufaro were our staff and did everything for us from surprising us with daily treats in our room, bringing medicine for stuffy noses, giving us the next day forecast and activities, and basically catering to anything and everything we desired. A few highlights for me were: eating a delicious 5 course meal with my husband and friends on our private balcony under the stars in the middle of the ocean, watching fireworks from the ship afterwards, playing volleyball on a private beach steps away from the turquoise ocean, sleeping-in late and waking up with the only worry being whether or not room service had come yet, and not turning on my phone or checking email for 4 entire days. We loved every minute.