Cruise Vacation Days 1 & 2

We woke up on Friday morning SOOOOO excited about the days ahead of us. Actually, Josh woke us up at 5:25am, jumped into bed and asked “Is today Grandma day??”, so of course that eased our worries about him missing us! So after a few failed attempts of trying to get him back to bed, we were up and getting ready. Everything had been packed in the days before, so we just needed to tidy up a bit, zip up the luggage and head out. We brought the kids to d/c and we were on the road to Buffalo by 8am.

We arrived in Buffalo at about 9:30am, so plenty of time to shop. After driving around numerous places, we finally found a good spot to shop. We picked up some running shoes and dress pants for Tim, diapers for the kids, and some snacks. So we didn’t do too much damage (yet). We then drove our car to the parking lot and took the shuttle to the airport.

As is always my luck, we took off 30 minutes late and I was panicked because we had only a 35 minute layover in Chicago. So, we landed in Chicago around 3:05pm and our plane left at 3:20……more than anything I was worried about our luggage not making it. So we ran as fast as we could across O’Hare aiport and after about a 10 minute jog/run we were at our gate with 5 minutes to spare. That’s when we saw that we were delayed: 3:37pm……PERFECT……..our luggage should make it now. So, we boarded and took off and landed around 8pm.

We sat at that conveyor belt watching everyone’s luggage go round and round and never saw ours. My worst nightmare coming true, they LOST OUR LUGGAGE! So, we spoke to the American Airlines people and they told us that they would “try” to get it to us by the next morning. UGH. It was stuck in Chicago. At this point I started crying thinking that all of our luggage wouldn’t make it for the cruise. In the meantime, American Airlines gave us NOTHING, not a toothbrush, not 10 dollars to say sorry, NOTHING NOTHING…..Tim didn’t even have contact solution for his contacts. So, when we hopped in the cab, we got him to bring us to Walgreens where we picked up some essentials and headed to the hotel.

When we got to the Radisson, the guy at the front desk saw that I was crying and upset, so he said he would upgrade our room and give us free breakfast vouchers – WOW – and it wasn’t even them who made the mistake! That brought up my spirits a lot. Great customer service is alive somewhere if not at American Airlines. So, after a fitful sleep worrying about our luggage, I woke up at 5:30am and checked the status. SUCCESS….our luggage was in Miami and would make it to our hotel. We finally got it at noon with much relief. We changed into some clean clothes after wearing the same thing for over 24 hours, and we headed to the ship.

Getting onto the ship was extremely smooth and we were on by 12:30! Our first stop was Sorrento’s for an antipasto salad (my fave!) and some pizza. We then explored the ship a bit and headed to our room………SOOOO EXCITING…….a beautiful balcony cabin, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Our wonderful cabin



Again, our luggage hadn’t arrived to our room so we didn’t have much to do in the room. We read for a bit and then went to explore the ship again. Tim, of course, wanted to check out the Sports Deck. We saw the rock climbing wall, basketball court, Flow Rider (on board surfing), ping pong tables, mini-golf, and more. I then decided to go back to the room to read, and Tim played some basketball….he came back completely covered in sweat at which point I informed him that our luggage still hadn’t arrived and he would have to go to dinner covered in sweat. So, he went searching for our luggage and right before dinner we got it and were able to get dressed up.

Tim on the basketball court:


A shot of me - VERY TIRED!!!!!


Before dinner there was a show that consisted of some acrobatics and a comedy guy. It was fun. Then, we headed to dinner which was wonderful. Tim had Melon, house salad, prime rib, and apple pie and I had an onion tart, shrimp ravioli and chocolate fondue. Very yummy!

We didn’t finish dinner until 10:30, so we headed back to our room, organized a bit and went to bed as it was a LOOOONG day (that started at 5:30 am!).


Beautiful Sunset from our cabin