Carnival Breeze – 8 day countdown: let the chaos begin

Now that our cruise is getting real close, it is time to make my must do to do list for the week. I only hope that I can get everything done. As you can see, the list is nothing out of the ordinary other than making sure my mom does not run out of any of her medications and her cokes!!!!

I have tried to plan out my week in hopes if getting everything done in between working my paying job, making sure there are items to publish on my blog while we are gone, write and publish my blogs for this week, and making sure all the craft projects are complete!!!

Luckily, the craft projects should not take more than 2 or 3 days to complete. Barring no complications or distractions.

While looking at my lists, please let me know if there is anything I may have forgotten.

Carnival Breeze 2022 – Time to make the lists.

With 4 weeks to go, I have decided it is time to make the lists for this cruise. I will primarily be focusing on clothes and maybe shoes. But I will also include my excessive first aid kit. So lets get started.

Since my first aid kit seems to have more on it than the clothes I will be taking, lets start with it.

I know the list is long but in these times, I want to be prepared for anything and everything including taking a lot of face masks!

I do have a small first aid kit I keep in my purse, but it is very basic.

Now for the clothes. For every cruise I go on, I will make a chart of the days on the cruise and what will be going on those days. This year, I decided to use my handy dandy Plum Planner.

First, I wrote on each day what would be going on. This gives me an idea of what I will wear on that day.

On the opposite page, I wrote in pencil what I plan on wearing that day and evening.

Since I have written everything in pencil, it will be easy to change in my planner should I change my mind about something. And believe me, I already have.

For some reason, when I was putting the clothes together, it appears that I will be taking a lot less clothes than I normally do. This makes my husband so excited. But since it is still early, there may or may not be any changes made to the list. I guess the only way to find out will be to come back for the packing blog which will be up closer to cruise time.

Thanks for reading!!!

Carnival Dream 2021 Precruise: #1 How did this happen?

In all honesty, we were not expecting our cruise on the Carnival Radiance to be cancelled. And yet, here we are!!! We totally understand the reason for the cancellation and we our looking forward to our next cruise leaving in exactly one year.

But let’s look back on how everything has changed since our original cruise…

On November 15, 2019, I booked an 8-day cruise on Carnival Freedom leaving out of Galveston on August 29, 2020. This was booked as a surprise for my husband even though I was sharing information with him one evening. At the time I booked, there was a $50 deposit sale going on so it was a perfect time to book. A couple of days after I booked the cruise, we had family birthday lunch at his sisters house. I asked her to give him his present from me to him so he wouldn’t suspect anything. But somehow, when he was given his “gift” he knew it was something from me. He was happy that we would be going to different ports for us and on a ship we had not been on. The ports of call would be Key West, Freeport, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau. Now all we had to do was wait for August 29, 2020 to get here. Or so we thought.

Then COVID-19 happened and everything we knew started to change everywhere. Cruise lines started cancelling cruises. People had to wear masks in public. People were asked to stay home. We sat and watched thinking we would be in the clear since our cruise was several months away. But just in case, I started looking at options for next year and even posted the options on our refrigerator so we could look at the list whenever wanted to. Occasionally we would talk about the options, but we still had hopes that we would be going on our Carnival Freedom cruise. We were wrong.

On June 22, 2020, we received an email from Carnival letting us know that our cruise had been cancelled. We were given options and decided we would rebook for August 20, 2021 on the Carnival Radiance, selecting a 9-day cruise going to Key West, Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau. The only think left to do was to wait for FTTF to become available to think about excursions. There was nothing else to worry about. Or so we thought.

On July 23, 2020, we received an email stating our Carnival Radiance cruise had been cancelled. This is something we were not expecting at all. I sent Jim a text letting him know that the cruise on the Carnival Radiance had been cancelled and we would need to think about our options for re-booking. By the time he got home, I had a list of our options listed by length of cruise.

Option 1 – 6-day cruise on the Carnival Dream going to Costa Maya, Belize, and Cozumel leaving Galveston on August 22, 2021.

Option 2 – 6-day cruise on the Carnival Dream going to Costa Maya, Mahogany Bay, And Cozumel leaving Galveston on August 8, 2021.

Option 3 – 7-day cruise on the Carnival Vista going to Mahogany Bay, Belize, and Cozumel leaving Galveston on August 28, 2021.

Option 4 – 7-day cruise on the Carnival Vista going to Montego Bay, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel leaving Galveston on August 21, 2021.

Option 5 – 8-day cruise on the Carnival Dream going to Key West, Freeport, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau leaving Galveston on August 28, 2021.

While I was waiting for Jim to get home, I sent an email to our PVP, Josh Waitzman, to let him know that we would know what cruise we would want to change to by 6pm. I had a feeling in knew which one Jim would want to pick to I started looking at the available staterooms. I narrowed it down to either an interior with walkview or a balcony stateroom with an extra large balcony.

Once Jim got home and we talked about the options for maybe 5 minutes, I was ready to speak to our PVP and sent him an email letting him know we knew what we want!!! We had decided on the 8-day Carnival Dream selecting an balcony stateroom with the extra large balcony. True to form, Josh sent me an email letting me know he would be calling me shortly. Within 30 minutes, he called and everything was transferred to the new cruise! Our PVP makes everything thing happen to effortlessly. Plus he is so fun to talk to!!!

On July 24th, I sent an email to the Port of Galveston requesting to transfer our parking reservation hoping that this will be the last time I have to do this. To my surprise, I received a response within an hour with the new information for our parking reservation. I was also able to purchase Faster to the Fun. Today was definitely a good day!!! Then on August 4th, I booked a cabana for our time in Half Moon Cay. I decided that I really didn’t want to take a chance of waiting and then not being available.

Now we wait one year for our cruise. During this time, we will consider our excursion options for Key West, Freeport, and Nassau. I will also be watching for hotel options for our pre-cruise stay and will make endless to-do lists and packing lists. Luckily I know how time flies and before we know it, we will once again be boarding the Carnival Dream for another fabulous cruise.

COVID-19 Crushed our Carnival Cruise

A new year, a new cruise countdown. Jim and I were looking forward to our cruise on the Carnival Freedom I booked on November 15, 2019. We were branching out from the typical 5 or 7 night cruise and would be going on an 8-night cruise to Key West, Freeport, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau. This would be the second cruise that did not go to Cozumel. And although it seemed strange to not going there, we were looking forward to a much different itinerary.

Everything was going along like normal. I was looking at possible excursions but not booking anything. Just looking to get an idea on things we might want to do in the different ports would be going to. And I may have been doing some Amazon shopping as well. But for some reason, I was not shopping as much as I normally would.

February came around. Jim tested positive for the Flu and I had recovered from it. Ryan Newman had an horrific crash at the end of the Daytona 500 which he survived and has returned to racing. If you saw the crash, you know that he definitely had an angel riding with him during that time.

But there had been news reports about COVID-19, the Corona Virus. At a routine check-up with my doctor, he told me not to go on any cruises. I told him that we had one booked for August 29th. So, after much discussion, we decided to keep our cruise and see how things worked out.

Then cruises started getting cancelled by ALL cruise lines when the CDC established a no-sail rule. I was starting to get concerned about the fate of our cruise, but I decided that whatever was to happen would happen. I stopped shopping for the cruise and started concentrating on other areas of our life. Particularly my mother who resides in an assisted living facility. The facility immediately blocked all visitors from the facility. At least I knew she would be safe from the virus. Or would she.

On April 13, 2020, Carnival extended the cruise pause to June 27th. I felt relieved but not convinced that we would cruise. I was still not shopping for the cruise and my level of scoping possible excursions dropped drastically. But I did start looking at options for a cruise for next year, just in case! I picked out three cruises for August 2021 that I felt would be comparable to the cruise we had booked, printed out the options, and left the options on the refrigerator for Jim and I to look at and consider.

Option #1 is a cruise on the Carnival Dream leaving Galveston on August 28, 2021. It is an 8-night cruise with the same itinerary we already have booked. The pros, it is an itinerary we have not gone on. The cons, we were on this ship last year. We like the idea of going on a ship we have not been on but we will consider it as an option.

Option #2 is a cruise on the Carnival Radiance leaving Galveston on August 20, 2021. It is a 9-night cruise going to Key West, Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau with four sea days!. The pros, it will be a ship we have not been on and has recently been thru a dry-dock. The cons, I’m not sure there are any. This cruise option is definitely high on our list!

Option #3 is also on the Carnival radiance leaving Galveston on August 6, 2021. It is also a 9-night cruise but will be going to Grand Cayman, Mahogany Bay, Belize, Costa Maya, and Cozumel with three sea days. The pros are the same as option #2. The cons, we have already been to all of the cruise ports with the exception of one, Costa Maya. Although we have no objections to going to ports we have already visited, we are really looking forward to something new and different for us.

Jim and I would periodically look at the cruise options but didn’t give it much thought. That is until around June 19th. Rumors had started making their way onto the group cruise page. I started looking at stateroom options for all 3 cruises so I could have an idea of what we might want. Since the cruise I booked for this year is in an interior with walkway view, I thought it would see what is available for the same category stateroom as well as balcony staterooms. Once Jim got home from work. I told him he had to make his decision then. No waiting. Once he told me his choice, we discussed staterooms. We could have the same category or we could go with our preferred choice of a balcony on Lido.

So Jim decided on Option 2!!! In looking at the stateroom options, I noticed that there were “L-shaped” balcony staterooms available on deck 7. I put one on hold knowing that it would expire in a couple of days. I started holding my breath until the pause extension was officially announced on Monday June 22nd. I immediately called my PVP and left a message on his voice mail and I also sent him an email asking him to call me ASAP as I already knew what I wanted to do.

Much to my surprise, he contacted me by email within a couple of hours and said he would call me shortly. And he did!!! We were able to transfer our booking to the Carnival Radiance leaving Galveston on August 20, 2021. We are booked in the L-shaped balcony I want. The money we paid for the original cruise transferred to our new booking, obviously without penalty, and we received a nice on-board credit.

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Now we are back to a very long cruise countdown. And I’m okay with that!!! I have once again started looking at excursions but I’m going to wait until closer to the cruise to start my shopping. Well, I might book one excursion in a couple of weeks. I guess we will just have to wait and see!!!

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Countdown to Carnival Freedom – Issue #2 We are parking somewhere different!

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With 175 days until our cruise, I finally decided to start researching our parking options for this cruise. Now, this is not our first time to cruise out of Galveston. This will be our ninth cruise leaving from this port! So we are aware of all the options that our out there.

For this cruise, I initially was deciding between EZ Cruise Parking and Galveston Park N Cruise. EZ Cruise Parking has the option of parking with shuttle to the port or park and walk to the port while Galveston Park N Cruise is strictly park in walk. We have EZ Cruise Parking four times and Galveston Park N Cruise three times and, for the most part, have been happy with Both. But this time, after posting the weekly countdown to the Facebook group page for this cruise, I decided to look into a couple of different options. Port Parking and Port of Galveston parking.

The first cruise parking lot that has become our favorite due to its location is Galveston Park N Cruise, galvestonparkncruise.com. It is located at 2514 Strand Street and is a very easy walk across the street to Cruise Terminal #1. The street to the cruise terminal is protected with a light so there is no need to dodge cars while crossing! Galveston Park N Cruise offers two options: indoor parking or outdoor parking. For this cruise, the rates are:

Outdoor: $111.90

Indoor: $129.20

There is no shuttle to the port which is fine with us. We have no problem walking to the cruise terminal.

EZ Cruise parking was the next parking facility we considered, ezcruiseparking.com. It is located at 2727 Santa Fe Place and is also an easy walk to Terminal #1 but not easy from terminal #2 which we found out last year on our Carnival Dream cruise. EZ Cruise Parking offers two options: park and walk or park with shuttle. Both options are outdoors but the do offer an option of a car cover for an additional $10. The base rates before taxes and fees for this facility are:

Park and walk: $92.02 (prepaid booking)

Park and shuttle $97.43 (prepaid booking)

The routinely have a promo code you can use that is typically $5.00.

Since we are aware that this cruise will start at terminal 2, we know the walk will not be easy. We also know that the shuttle to and from the terminal has been slow. On one cruise, we were so tired and frustrated waiting on a shuttle that we walked to the port. This is one reason we tried the park and walk option on our last cruise. On this cruise, we decided that this would not be an option for us. At least not for this cruise.

Port Parking was the next to be considered, portparking.com. Located at 202 37th Street, at the corner of Harborside, we have driven past this parking facility several times, we never really took it into consideration mostly due to the location. It was highly recommended on our Facebook group cruise page so I decided to look into it a little more deeply. This facility offers three options: outdoor parking with shuttle, indoor parking with shuttle, or indoor park and walk. Personally, I would not use the park and walk option. I do not think my lungs could handle the walk but I did consider the shuttle options.

The rates for this cruise are:

Outdoor with shuttle: $108.25

Indoor with shuttle: $108.25

Indoor park and walk: $92.02.

I will say that I was surprised that the price for indoor and outdoor were the same. I did hear great things about this facility and the shuttle service so it was a contender.

Another facility I briefly looked at was Falstaff Cruise Parking located at 3402 Church Street, falstaffcruiseparking.com. I had seen this one used by frequent cruiser Life With Favor. Since it is one that she used I decided I would at least look at it. It is indoor parking, and is just a bit further to the port than Port Parking. So look I did but quickly decided against it…

Parking: $85.00

Shuttle to pier: $15.00

Total price after taxes and fees: $115.83

I probably would have given it more consideration if they did not have a separate charge for the shuttle. Definitely not close enough to walk in my opinion. I will definitely give it consideration on future cruise, but not this one and not with the payment structure. I would rather see the parking and shuttle be inclusive instead of separate.

The last option I looked at is Port of Galveston parking, portofgalveston.com We used this on our first cruise out of Galveston. Sense then, we have broaden our horizons and look at and use others. Port of Galveston has 2 options, parking lot and parking garage. I always thought there was only the one lot option so I was excited to see another option. The parking lot option offers a shuttle while the parking garage is directly across the street and an easy walk to Terminal 1 or 2. Although there is a walkway leading from the garage to the pier, I fully understand that it is not accessible. The rates for both seem competitive:

Parking Lot B: $92.00 (after fees and taxes with a $5.00 discount for prepaid online booking). Located at 224 23rd Street.

Parking Garage: $122.00 (after fees and taxes with a $5.00 discount for prepaid online booking). Located at 150 Rosenberg.

Since we like to be adventurous, we decided to try Port of Galveston garage parking!!! I will give a full review of the parking when we return from our cruise in September.

So the cruise is booked, hotel has been booked, and now parking has been reserved and paid for. What’s next???? Time to start my packing lists!

Carnival Dream 2019 – Precruise#7: Evening Attire

First, let me apologize for this blog being late. Sunday we celebrated my mother’s birthday and I had my daughter take some pictures of my husband and I in our evening attire. While the pictures came out okay, I wasn’t happy with the way some of the clothes made me look so I had to re-think a couple of outfits. Which meant I had to retake photos. I will post the ones my daughter took but please be kind. It was hot, the clothes still need to be ironed, and there was a party going on inside my mothers very small apartment. Now, on with the post!!!!

We are 6 weeks away from sail-away!!!! The next 42 days will go by very fast and I feel like I still have a lot to do!!! Clothes need to be ironed. Others need to go to the cleaners. And of course, there is still the stop at Spec’s for our champagne and wine we will be carrying on board!!!!

There is something you should know about me before I continue. I love to get dressed for dinner. Not necessarily over-the-top dressed up, but something I would not consider wearing after dinner. So, after dinner I change into something more comfortable for any situation such as mini golf, movies under the stars, piano bar cocktails, or giving money to the casino. Most nights, with the exception of the first night, I will have 2 evening outfits. I’m old and set in my ways so please bear with me.

Dinner the first night usually means the photography staff will come to each table and take your picture with a pirate!!!! Since we are celebrating the 17th anniversary of our honeymoon cruise, we will not be wearing the clothes we wear when we take our embarkation photo. Instead, we will wearing something casual and comfy. This is our choice… okay, it’s my choice and it is what we WILL be doing, LOL! Tonight I will be wearing an asymmetrical top in shades of blue, turquoise, and white with a pair of white capris, white sandals, and a necklace and earrings in a shade of turquoise. Jim will be wearing khaki’s and a light green golf shirt. My top and capris are from Steinmart, sandals are from Amazon, and the necklace and earrings are from BaubleBar. Jims shirt is from Amazon. He’s had his pants for so long, I do not know where they are from. Could be Dillards, could be Ross, and it could be Burlington’s. I just do not know about any of his pants or shorts. I can only account for this golf shirts!!!!

Cruise Elegant Night!!!!! I love this night!!! I like to be able to get dressed up since I rarely do it at home and I definitely do not do it for work. Tonight I will be wearing a white one shoulder jumpsuit and a pair of black heels, both from Venus.com. The jewelry I will be wearing is a black and gold braided necklace I found on Amazon and some black earrings I picked up at Charming Charlie. Jim will be wearing a blue and white shirt and navy slacks or maybe his khaki slacks. We will be dressy but not formal by any stretch of the imagination.

After dinner I will be wearing a tan colored halter with some bling to it and black capris I purchased at Venus.com. The earrings I will be wearing were purchased at one of those jewelry home show things, but I do not remember which one. I will also be wearing black flip-flops. I will need some comfy shoes after wearing heals for a few hours!!!! Jim will be changing into a red golf shirt and shorts.

Recovering from a day in Cozumel means light, comfy clothes that is something we would wear out to dinner if we were at home. I will be wearing a cream colored top from StitchFix that I am pairing with a tan and white very narrow stripe capris that I purchased at Steinmart. Tan sandals are from Amazon. Earrings from BaubleBar and necklace from Amazon. Jim will be wearing a gray golf shirt from Amazon with a pair of slacks.

After dinner I will be changing into my white capris and a blue and white stripe top with pink flamingos. Of course I will be wearing white flip flops I bought at DSW. And lets not forget the pink flamingo earrings from BaubleBar and the pink flamingo necklace from Charming Charlie. Jim will switch his slacks for a pair of shorts!

Since we have no plans for Progreso, I have chosen this night for a dinner in the steakhouse. This will be our first time to go to the steakhouse that Carnival Cruise Line has. I am beyond excited to do it on this cruise!!! I will be wearing a navy floral maxi dress from StitchFix, with pink wedges from Payless Shoe Source, a necklace with a pink drop that I think I purchased from Charming Charlie online, and pink earrings from BaubleBar. Jim will be wearing either a teal golf shirt from Amazon or a short sleeve button down shirt and slacks. Maybe you can help us decide which one he should wear.

After dinner I will be changing into a blue, black, and white halter and black capris along with black drop earrings and black flip flops. Jim will be changing into shorts and depending on which shirt he wears to dinner, he might be changing into a golf shirt as well.

Our last dinner on the ship is always so sad for me. But that doesn’t mean I will not dress comfortably. Tonight I am planning on wearing a white and blue stripe jumpsuit I purchased at Steinmart with white sandals from Amazon. The jewelry I will be wearing is also from Steinmart. Jim will be wearing a blue and white stripe golf shirt from Amazon and slacks.

No doubt, after dinner we will be changing one last time. I will be changing into a pair of blue capris from Steinmart and a tropical print halter from Venus.com, White flip flops and blue earrings will round out my after dinner outfit. Jim will obviously change into a pair of shorts.

For my own peace of mind, I am also taking a couple of dresses should I decide I do not want to wear the dinner outfits I have selected. Both dresses were purchased at Steinmart. At least I will have an option for the drive home after the cruise and the force us off the ship.

The first dress is a navy tank top dress with a gold anchor on it that come just below my knees. If you know me, you know I love anchors!!!! I will be wearing it with navy canvas shoes from Target, gold earrings, and white bracelet with an anchor on it and another bracelet with a blue and white anchor all from Charming Charlie.

The other dress is a bit over the knees and very flows beautifully. It is a precious tropical type print and I will be wearing it with gold earrings and my white sandals.

On the drive home, Jim will be wearing a blue golf shirt and shorts. Please note that this is the last golf shirt I have packed for him!!!

As you can see, I am definitely an over-packer. But this time, if I have planned everything correctly, I should only be coming home with one outfit that I did not wear.

Next week, precruise blog #8 will be what we have in our first aid kit.

Carnival Dream 2019 – Precruise #3: Our travel binder is ready to go!!!

I have always been afraid of losing my cruise documents. After reading some posts on a popular cruise site that has reviews and other information for every possible cruise line, I realized that there is a better way to keep our documents together. And what I have found works for me, is to use a binder.

I typically use a 1 1/2 to 2 inch binder, page protectors, dividers to separate the items I will be putting in the binder, and a pencil pouch that has 3 holes. I For this cruise, I am using a binder with a zipper closure. It also has a zippered pocket on the front. The inside front cover has two pockets with a Velcro closure on the top and open underneath, and the back cover has one pocket. So it definitely has plenty of storage.

I picked up this pencil pouch at Walmart one day. There are two zippered pockets on the front and one on the back. I use this to put cash in that we will be using for tips and to keep receipts. I might even use it this year to keep some pens in!!!

I purchased the dividers at Office Depot. They are wider than the sheet protectors as they extend beyond them which makes it easy to get from one section to another. The dividers are labeled according to when I will be using/needing them. Typically the sections are for hotel reservations, parking reservations, and stuff like that. But this year, I have adding one for driving directions. Although we have been to Galveston many times, with all the construction on I-45, we might try an alternate route this time. With this in mind, this years cruise dividers are: driving directions, hotel reservation confirmation, cruise parking reservation confirmation, luggage tags, boarding pass, reservation and excursion confirmations, booking summary, and information about our travel insurance and the cruise line legal information.

Since I love to scrapbook our cruises, I will have empty sheet protectors at the back of the binder to keep any daily newsletters and also for any photos we purchase.

So now that are countdown is at 10 weeks, I’m sure the time will fly by.

Please come back for the next installment which will be what I have purchased from Amazon for this cruise.

Carnival Triumph 2014 – Installment 2: When will we leave for Galveston?

Finally, September 19th rolled around. It is the day Dawson goes to visit his mother for the weekend. I knew when he left that we would not be able to start our cruise adventure until we picked him up on Sunday at 6 pm. But we were hoping his mother would agree to let us pick him up after church on Sunday. Either way, it would be a long wait for us to pick him up. So, around 5:30, Jim left to take Dawson to visitation. Jim returned around 6:30, walking in the door saying “we have a little problem.” My heart sank. Then right behind Jim walks in Dawson!!! Turns out that everyone at Dawson’s mothers house was ill and she didn’t want to take the chance of Dawson getting sick right before his vacation!!!! This means we could actually leave for Galveston much earlier!!!

But, since we have pets to make sure they are cared for, we stuck with the plan on leaving on Sunday!!!

On Saturday, we made sure everything was packed and ready to go. Of course, there are always last minute things we need to get so we did that as well.

We were definitely ready to roll on Sunday. We only had to make one stop at my brother-in-laws to drop off our 3 month old puppy for him to watch then we were on the road. We made our regular stop at Buc-ees and stopped for something to eat along the way but other than that, it was just a normal Sunday drive to Galveston!!!

After we got checked into our hotel, we went to have dinner at The Original Mexican Cafe. Fernando insisted on having 2 drinks and did not want to share, silly frog. He somehow managed to sneak into the car so now we were forced to take him to dinner with us!

Nothing else really happened on this night. Nothing to do but to take in the views and walk around. And pick up forgotten items from WalMart!!!

Now to try to get some sleep before we board the ship!!! It’s never easy for me to sleep before embarkation day. I just hope there is something good on TV to pass the time!!!

Installment #3 will be our embarkation day!!!

Carnival Triumph 2014 – Installment #1: I want to go on a cruise!!!

The desire to go on this particular cruise all started when a cruise buddies (Kandy and Doreen) started a group Facebook page for it on December 10, 2013. They were nice and sent me an “invitation” to join the Facebook page. Who am I to say no??? So, I regularly checked in on the page to see what was going on with the other people on this cruise. It wasn’t long before I became obsessed with buying anything with anchors on it!!! Our group voted on a name for us and we soon became known as the Anchor Clankers. One person designed shirts and we were able to have them made by PR Specialties!!! So here we are, a group of people who love to go on cruises, we have a name for a group, and we have a shirt with our group name and design on it!!!!

But at this point, we had not booked the cruise.

Life has a way of giving us challenges. We were lucky and overcame the challenges as best as we could. And finally on July 22, 2014 we booked the cruise. We would be sailing on the Carnival Triumph on September 22nd!!! I was able to get us a balcony stateroom on the Lido deck on the starboard side. I have never had a room on this side of the ship. I have always been on the portside. But, I will take whatever I can get!!! There will be 3 of us in this room: myself, my husband Jim, and our son Dawson. This will be Dawson’s second cruise and I’m hoping this one will be the one that will show him the love of cruising.

Luckily, waiting this late to book meant I had a very short countdown and I really need to start making plans. The weekend we leave for Galveston would be a visitation weekend for Dawson, so it was very important that I had things figured out ahead of time. I really do not want to drive to Galveston on the day we board the ship!

I made reservations for our overnight stay at Quality Inn in Galveston and for parking at Galveston Park N Cruise. I started hoping and praying that we would be able to pick Dawson up from his visitation early enough so we could have dinner at The Original Mexican restaurant. But there was no guarantee that any of this will fall into place.

All that is left now is to make sure we have the clothes we need, pack, and pray that everything falls into place.

Stay tuned for installment #2

Getting Carnival Vista Ready #6… Yes, I am an over-packer.

I always pack more than I need. But I like to have choices. This year, I will TRY to scale down some, but that may not happen. Some habits are hard to break. But I will plan everything out so that maybe, just maybe, I will actually wear everything I pack. I know it is not likely, but a girl can dream!!!

I like to try to plan my clothes for each day I will be gone. This cruise leaves on a Sunday. We will be driving to Galveston on Saturday so we do not have to stress over traffic and any unexpected delays. I do not want to miss a cruise because of delays getting to the port. I make a list clothes I am likely to wear according to our itinerary including travel days. This is the list for this cruise…

Saturday – TRAVEL DAY!!!. Jeans or Capri’s, shirt, tennis shoes.

Sunday – EMBARKATION DAY!!!! Jeans or Capri’s, group shirt, tennis shoes.

Monday – SEA DAY/CRUISE ELEGANT NIGHT. Daytime: shorts & top, swimsuit & cover-up, flip flops/tennis shoes. Evening: long dress, dress shoes, accessories (for dinner). Capri’s, top, sandals or flip flops (for after dinner). Yes I realize that is 2 outfits for the evening but I really do not want to wear my 5 inch heals all night long!

Tuesday – SEA DAY. Daytime: shorts & top, swimsuit & cover=up, flip flops/tennis shoes. Evening: Capri’s & top, sandals.

Wednesday – Mahogany Bay. Daytime: swimsuit & cover-up, shorts & top, flip flops. Evening: Capri’s & top, sandals.

Thursday – Belize. Daytime: shorts & top, tennis shoes while in port; swimsuit & cover-up, flip flops on ship. Evening: Capri’s & top, sandals.

Friday – Cozumel/ SECOND CRUISE ELEGANT NIGHT. Daytime: shorts & top, tennis shoes while in port; swimsuit & cover-up, flip flops on ship. Evening: long dress, dress shoes, accessories (dinner); Capri’s & top, sandals (after dinner). Yes I know, it another 2 outfit night. To be honest, depending on what is going on this evening, I might stay in this dress for the night. But then again, I might not.

Saturday – Sea Day. Daytime: swimsuit & cover-up, flip flops; shorts & top, tennis shoes or sandals. Evening: Capri’s & top, sandals

Sunday – THEY KICK US OFF THE SHIP. Travel day home. Jeans or Capri’s & top, tennis shoes.

After I make out my list, I look at my clothes and try to decide what I am going to take. I know on our night in Galveston we will be having dinner at The Original Mexican Cafe. This is a casual restaurant so we should not have the need to change clothes before we go out for dinner. This packing list does not include under garments. But that is only because I wait until the last minute to pack that!!! And I also have to make sure my mother has everything she needs. I have already purchased her some shorts and some Capri’s for this trip. She has since forgotten that she has them, LOL! This is what we have planned for her so far. She seems to think she needs more things, but that is probably just the dementia talking!

I do know I will need help in deciding what daytime and evening outfits to take on this cruise. My plan is to take pictures of the outfits tomorrow and post them in a blog tomorrow. At least that is what I hope to do.