Leading up to the Beginning

After my mother died in 2006, I decided to take the the money I inherited from her and do for my grandchildren what she did for my children. Of my 10 living grandchildren, two were much older (age 26 and age 24) and the oldest one had been on a trip with my mother.

The first grandchild went to Ireland in 2007 when he was 13 almost 14. The only flaw in the trip was the lack of other teens on the trip as he was very social.

Picture taken after lunch in Caherdaniel

So for the second grandchild, we took a cruise in the Mediterranean in 2008 He was also 13 almost 14

My grandson sitting on a step stone in Pompeii with the site map

So following that model, my third grandchild and I did a Baltic cruise in 2009. She was 12, almost 13.

My granddaughter and me in mid June in Tallinn

The fourth grandchild said specifically that he did not want to go to the Caribbean so I asked if he would like to go to Alaska or Hawaii. He was interested in volcanos and WWII, and he picked Hawaii. We also visited Yellowstone before we did the Hawaiian cruise in 2010 when he was 12.5

Grandson taking luggage out to the car from the Old Faithful Lodge

Bob and I went to Alaska in the spring of 2011

The fifth oldest grandchild and I did a cruise around Australia in 2012 when she was almost 13

Bob and I did a Caribbean cruise on the Maasdam in the winter of 2013

When it came time to do the sixth trip with granddaughter A (sister of the grandson that went to Hawaii), I had already done the Baltic, the Mediterranean, Hawaii and Australia with grandchildren, so I considered the possibility of doing the Caribbean in 2013 And I also thought I might do the cruise on Disney - a cruise line that was aimed at children and a line that I had not previously used.

So this was a Disney cruise. I also thought that Disney would be able to deal with my granddaughter's severe gluten allergy. She cannot even eat french fries that have been fried in the same frier that has been used to fry the breaded chicken nuggets. And in this particular area, Disney delivered.

Disney cruises in the Caribbean are only one week long, so I picked two cruises with two different itineraries on the same ship. Doing this is called going back-to-back. In the case of Disney, it is very unusual to do B2B. A Disney cruise is more expensive than the other mass market lines. They include soft drinks in the price, but I do not drink soft drinks (and neither did this grandchild). They also have Disney Character Meet & Greets but most of these were for the younger guests

People who do Disney parks or cruises are usually rabid Disney fans. I am not. Disneyland in Anaheim when Walt was still alive - yes. Since then, not so much.

Some of things about this cruise were good, but there were enough problems to make me even less of a Disney fan than I was before.