Before you embark on your first magical cruise, here’s a list of things to look forward to during the experience of a lifetime:
1. Tripping over thresholds in your stateroom. Signs are posted everywhere reminding you to watch your step, but you can still expect to fall into or out of the bathroom at least twice a day.
2. Exiting your stateroom single-file. With all the beds deployed, your space comfortably sleeps four. The rest of the time, you’ll be shifting yourselves around like Tetris pieces trying to locate everybody’s shoes. When you’re ready to leave, the whole family better line up at the door like it’s time for recess or it’s #bottleneck in Stateroom 6164.
3. Mainlining soft-serve ice cream. It’s free on the pool deck all day, so why not test the boundaries of your body’s ability to tolerate lactose with a IV-drip of chocolate/vanilla swirl? It’s not like you’re sharing a shitter, after all. Oh wait...
4. Being thankful those kids aren’t yours. Whether it’s the screaming four-year-old getting carted away from the pool in a football hold or the family whose kids are wrestling under the table during dinner while the baby pounds the porcelain salt shakers together like they owe him money, you recognize the muted rage on their parents’ faces. Yep. You’ve been there. And you’ll surely be there again. But—fingers crossed—just not before the dessert course.
5. Balancing your kid’s plate and yours while searching for a table at the breakfast buffet. Even if your kid starts out wanting to hold their own plate, they’ll be pawning it off on you before you can say “ice-cream-and-bacon-for-breakfast”. You’ll need to pull off some Disney magic of your own before your arms buckle under the weight of prime rib, pancakes, chocolate milk, and chicken fingers.
6. Monopolizing the slides while everyone else is still looking for a place to sit at the breakfast buffet. If you hustle, your kids can ride that water slide 5 to 10 times in a row before the whole cruise queues up for the rest of the day.
7. Trying to keep track of your kid in an over-crowded pool. During peak pool time, the main kids’ bathing area looks like the embodiment of the phrase “fish in a barrel”. If the saying is accurate, this is ideal for trying to peg one at random with a water gun. Impossible for trying to locate one or two in particular.
8. Wondering why the water slide is temporarily “closed for sanitation”. Your kids were on it all morning, so you hope it’s just a “routine maintenance” kind of thing. But deep down, you know. Somebody shat on that slide.
9. Telling your son to stop licking the handrails. You mistakenly thought it went without saying. But apparently, when you’re jussst the right height for resting your chin on the handrail, sooner or later, he’s gonna mouth it like a soft-serve cone.
10. Applying sunscreen like you’re frosting a cake. This might be the Caribbean, but your people hail from a cold, dark place. Nothing short of spf 70 will shield your family from the sun’s wrath this close to the equator. So get out the spatula and spread that shit like it’s buttercream.
11. Watching families blatantly ignore the “no seat-saving” rule. Friendly reminders are posted at the pool and broadcast daily over the public address system. But that family of 15 celebrating Meemaw’s 80th birthday couldn’t give a good goddamn. So go ahead and cordon-off two rows of deck chairs with a rope of intertwined pool towels like you plan to rappel from the pool deck to your stateroom veranda later. Cuz “no seat-saving” can’t possibly apply to you.
12. Explaining to your kids why they can’t just stay in the kids’ club forever. Disney Cruises offer free childcare in the kids’ club, so parents can experience some adults-only options. After leaving the kids just long enough to feel guilty, you return to collect them from the kids’ club, only to be chastised for arriving too early. Why, mommy, whyyyyy can’t we just stay? Because it’s 10:45, son. And if Mommy stays out any later, she might be dancing on the bar in D Lounge like it’s 1998.
13. Feeling sorry for the parents whose kids refuse to stay in the kids’ club. Some kids are violently allergic to alone-time (especially when it’s Mommy’s). And for every five kids who’d become emancipated minors just to establish permanent residence in the kids’ club, there’s one wailing at the gate with outstretched arms like a scene from Sophie’s Choice. This kid ain’t havin’ it.
14. Beaching yourselves next to the swim-up bar at the adults-only pool while your children are in the kids’ club. Beyond the teeming fish bowls on the family pool deck lies a magical world where disinterested grandparents and guilty-looking parents lounge with drinks in their hands and no one yelling “watch me” on a repetitive loop. You can pass out in the shade with a book on your face or just remember what it feels like to be weightless in water without anyone hanging on you.
15. Holding the bread basket while your son pukes into it at dinner. Sorry, guys. Consider the ambience wrecked. Guess we’ll be taking tonight’s food to-go.
16. Asking your stateroom staff for a new ice bucket and a tub of sani-wipes. The unfortunate consequence of 8, 9, and 15.
17. Forgetting your key card is in the light switch. It’s how you buy booze, get back in your stateroom, and prove you’re not an illegal stowaway trying to smuggle themselves into the boat after a port-of-call excursion. But it’s also how you activate the lights in your stateroom. So don’t bother panicking when you inevitability “lose” it. Because it’s always in the light switch.
18. Wondering how your husband will fit in the shower. As an average-sized female, you made it work. But between the low ceiling and the retractable clotheslines, you imagine anyone over 5’ 10” looks like Wreck-It Ralph crammed into the sink.
19. Drinking wine out of disposable coffee cups during mini-golf. Refills on coffee, tea, and soda are available throughout the day at self-service beverage stations. But for those of you who need a little extra to make it through that third round of family putt-putt, a discreet cup of vino from the stateroom fridge is both classy and functional.
20. Eating your face off. Whether it’s a 4-course sit-down dinner or the equivalent of an ice cream keg stand at the soft-serve tap—it’s delicious and paid for. So eat the fuck up.
And enjoy! Because every second won’t be perfect, but your memories of it will be. Happy sailing!
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