Cruising with a Toddler. Our Photo Intense Trip Recap of the 9-7-13 Carnival Dream

[TeknikDC2]

Hi everyone. It feels good to be back. After nearly 2 1/2 years we finally returned to cruising. We just got home from our wonderful 13 day vacation last night that included a 7 day Easter Caribbean Cruise on the Carnival Dream as well as a few days at the Universal Orlando Resort.

 

*Please take note now that I will cover MY ENTIRE VACATION in this review. Not only the cruise portion. I do this not only for my own record but to give pre or post cruise ideas to those who may be sailing out of Port Canaveral, or Tampa or any other Port that may be located near these locations. The cruise portion of this recap will begin on Day 4 and run thru Day 11. If you'd like to get an idea of how I write my reviews please feel free to click the links to my past Cruise reviews located in my signature. I have slightly changed how I load my reviews opting for shorter multi-part recaps of each day instead of one large recap so that its not such a photo overload for your computers. The recap will take a while to complete but please be patient.*

 

Returning to cruising was something we had hoped to do for a while now. But the birth of our Son in 2011 kind of prevented that. In 2012 we made it a year of Disney instead of cruising visiting all the US Disney and Universal parks within a calender year. Obviously our 1 year old at the time loved the parks and what they offered.

 

But no matter how fun the Theme Parks are we still had a desire to Cruise again. And we thought 2013 would be a good year to do so as we would celebrate our 5th year of marriage. Over a year ago those plans to cruise for our anniversary started to fade as Kieras Family was tentively planning a big family trip the Theme Parks in Orlando. With how hard it would be to do this trip in the future we abandoned our cruising plans to do this trip with her family instead.

 

Well come spring her family started to get cold feet about the trip and in June finally gave the confirmation that the trip was cancelled and wouldn't be happening this year. Since we had already saved the money we decided that we would still be vacationing and there was really no other option other then a cruise on the table. Especially at the rates that were being offered at the time. I was already eyeing the 9-7-13 sailing of the Dream to the Eastern Caribbean out of Port Canaveral and when I scored some amazing Flights into Tampa for that time period it all but confirmed we would be cruising.

 

As many of you who have read my past trip reports know though we are also huge fans of the Universal Orlando Resort and usually spend a few days there prior to our cruises. That would be no different this time with the exception that we decided to purchase Annual Passes to the parks. Not only would it give us options to visit the parks before and after the cruise we would also get food/merchandise discounts, and free parking. But the big perk will come when we return Next spring for the Opening of the Harry Potter expansion. But more on that later.

 

The dates for this trip would be 9-4 to 9-16. We would fly from Utah to Tampa on the 4th and head to Universal to activate our Passes that night. We would spend 2 days in the park before heading to Port Canaveral on 9-7. After the week long cruise that returned on 9-14 we would spend the remaining time back in Orlando at Universal again until we flew back to Utah from Tampa on 9-16.

 

For those who don't remember us my name is Jeff and i'm 30 years old. My wife is Kiera and she is 25. On our Honeymoon back in 2008 we fell in Love with not only cruising but traveling in General and have been doing much of it since. This cruise was our 5th voyage but the 11th vacation we've had since we got married. Joining us for our cruise though for the first time would be our Son Daniel who is almost 2. The last cruise we took was when Kiera was pregnant with him. We were very interested in seeing how cruising would be with a toddler.

 

 

Originally I had booked an Inside cabin for our trip. But with the More=Merrier promotion I was able to upgrade to a Deluxe Ocean View room for the same cost. This was a surprise I kept from Kiera until right before the trip. We also opted for Late Dinning on this trip.

 

Anyways I think that gets all the basic info out of the way. If you'd like an idea of how my trip reports tend to go please click on of the links in my signature to my past trip reports. They are long and detailed and take a while to complete but pleas bare with me.

 

With that said let me say thanks to all of you checking out this tread. If you have any questions or comments please ask as I will be happy to answer them as quickly as I can. thanks again and I hope to get started on it very soon.

[Calkacky]

What a very nice looking family you 3 are! I look forward to reading your review.

[poptart]

I'll be looking forward to the read and the pictures!

[nchikk]

We were also on this sailing. I'm looking forward to reliving the cruise through you until I get around to write my review.

[Crusin Karen]

Looking forward to reading about your cruise!

[Kel040]

We will be on the Dream in about 73 days... Can't wait to read your review ! :)

Edited September 17, 2013 by Kel040

[Hockey Addict]

I'm ready for a awesome review! You're such a cute family!!! :D

[mlipreston]

Can't wait to continue to read your review. Subscribing. :-)

 

 

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[Youngen2505]

Can't wait for the rest

[Ciardasully]

Thank you for writing this. DH and I don't have kids yet but I look forward to seeing how cruising worked with a toddler!

[*Cassie*]

We will be taking our daughter, who will be almost 14 months at the time, on her first cruise in February so I'm looking forward to your review on how cruising with a little one went!

[jbhcw]

Looking forward to your review! Our grandson was a little over two when he cruised for the first time...he had a great time but didn't like Camp Carnival after dark:):):)

[josefina022]

I've always loved your reviews, can't wait to read the rest! Your family is adorable and I feel like we could be great friends, lol.

[jaxfl]

Hey Tek,

 

What am I missing here? The title says Photo Intense Trip Recap of the 9-7-13 Carnival Dream, to be Photo Intense it must have pictures.... where are the pictures? :rolleyes:

[matondo]

I remember you all! Glad to see you are cruising again. I am looking forward to your review.

[TrqoisWtrs]

I remember you guys - congrats on the new little one! :)

 

Looking forward to your review.

[RC Dancers]

I hope this works, I've never posted pics before:

 

 

From the Oasis of the Seas

Edited September 18, 2013 by RC Dancers

[TeknikDC2]

Thanks for the comments everyone. Here is the start of this report. Once again please bare with me as it will take a while to put together. I took over 3000 photos on this trip and probably over half of them will be shared. Between work and taking care of a child time to write this things is limited so I will be doing many smaller updates instead of one large one. Thanks again though. I hope to update regularly.

 

Day 1, Part 1: Travel to Florida

 

It was early but finally the Wednesday that would start our vacation was upon us. It was 6am and we were very tired. We had only got about 3 hours of sleep as we were up late getting everything packed. Soon enough though we were packed and ready to go. The suitcases and bags were in the car and the only thing left was to awaken the Child. Daniel likes to sleep in till usually around 10am so waking him up at almost 7am was not something he would like. Good thing he was so tired that he practically fell back asleep right when we put him into the car.

 

After doing a final check of the house we were on our way and officially on vacation. We would be driving 20 minutes to Kieras Parents house where my Brother would be meeting us to drive us to the airport. We would be leaving the car at Kieras parents. For once in our life we were actually on time. And my brother was early so we were able to unload my car and reload his and be on our way to the airport sooner then we originally anticipated. Daniel woke up briefly while we were switching cars but fell back asleep as we continued the drive to the Airport.

 

We got the airport a little bit before 8am where we would get be catching a 9:35am flight to Denver. As those who have read my reports in the past know we fly pretty exclusively with Southwest Airlines. We love the service they provide plus there cheaper fares and free baggage is a huge plus in our books. It also doesn’t hurt that we have a Southwest Rapids Rewards Visa ether. The best part of the Visa card though is that we had enough points saved to cover both of our Flight Tickets on this trip. When I booked this vacation I did so because Airfare got ridiculously cheap to Florida. So cheap that had we had to pay for the airfare it would have been the cheapest we’d ever paid. It would have been about $240 round trip per person. Or roughly 22,000 Rapid Rewards Points. Not having to pay Airfare on this trip was a huge savings. And since Daniel was still 3 weeks away from turning 2 he could still fly for free as a lap child.

 

Check in took a bit longer then normal on this trip but it wasn’t bad. We’ve had longer. With Daniel being so close to turning 2 they did a more thorough check of his Birth Certificate before printing our boarding passes. Also traveling for nearly 2 weeks with a toddler meant that we had 4 full bags, plus our carry on items, plus a stroller and car seat to deal with. Soon enough though we dropped the bags off and continued on thru security which was a breeze this morning.

 

For those traveling with Infants or Toddlers we brought a small Horizon Milk for Daniel to drink in the morning. It was still sealed and unopened as we got to security. Just a heads up that anything in a sealed container like this will need to be opened up so that they can test it. Luckily I was carrying some empty sippy cups in my back pack that we could pour the milk into to be tested so It didn’t turn out to be an issue. But had we not had another cup they would not have let it go thru security.

 

We were finally at our gate with plenty of time to spare. We found a place to sit and wait near the child section that had kid shows playing on a TV and a little table and toys that kids could play with. This area kept Daniel farely entertained until our flight. Since none of us had eaten anything yet we decided to grab breakfast before the flight. I opted to grab a Chicken Biscuit from Popeye’s while Kiera got a Breakfast Sandwich from Wendy’s. We tried to get Daniel to eat some of our stuff but he wasn’t having it at this time.

 

 

As soon as we were finished with Breakfast it was time to start boarding our plane. We had B boarding passes but since we were a family we would be able to board between the A and B groups. The flight was full so we gate checked the stroller and car seat and then found a row of seats for our short flight to Denver. Daniel feel asleep right as we were taking off so it was a mellow and easy flight to Denver for us. And from Salt Lake the flight only takes about an hour so it was quick too.

 

 

Daniel woke back up right before we landed in Denver where we would have a short Layover. Now we’ve passed thru Denver before going to and returning from other vacations. But each time we had before we never actually got off the plane. So this was actually our first time stepping foot into the Denver Airport. We made a quick stop at the restrooms and tried to find something to snack on but there really wasn’t any food locations in this terminal of the Airport. And what was there was very expensive. We had plenty of snacks so we opted to not buy any food at this time and would just wait until we got to Tampa to eat. Yes I just said we would be flying to Tampa. Not Orlando. That was the only draw back to the cheap (or in our case Free) airfare. The flights would be to Tampa as Orlando was pretty pricey at the time. Not a big deal breaker we thought as the drive from Tampa to Orlando is only about an hour. Daniel loved waiting to board by looking at the airplanes. We could also see our luggage waiting to be reloaded.

 

[TeknikDC2]

 

The flight from Denver to Tampa was not full so this time we only gate checked the stroller and were able to bring Daniels Car Seat on the plane with us as he could have his own seat. We once again used Family boarding and found a row to sit in. It was kind of a pain to get Daniels Car Seat buckled in but I was finally able to in which he was soon buckled in as well. He usually does fine in the car in his seat but he was not happy about it on the plane. I think he has been so use to being able to sit on our laps and move around that he didn’t want to sit in his seat. Good thing this was really the only time he got fussy on the flight.

 

 

This flight would be just over 3 hours long and was obviously the stretch we worried about most when traveling with a Toddler. But we came prepared. We had many of his Movies loaded onto the Laptop that kept him pretty entertained during the flight despite him not being able to hear it as he wouldn’t wear the headphones. We also brought our Kindle Fire which has many little learning games that he likes to play and a bag of Toys and Snacks to help too. Overall other then a little fit here and there he did pretty well on the flight. He did get out of the seat once and enjoyed the freedom. For the last leg of the flight though he actually fell asleep once again. That of course was after he kicked Kieras tray table accidentally and knocked her drink onto her lap.

 

[TeknikDC2]

 

We soon started our decent into Tampa where we were on a tight schedule to get to Orlando. As many of you know we are big fans of the Universal Orlando Resort and typically will spend a few days there before our Cruises out of Port Canaveral or Tampa. For this trip though (and for a future trip next spring) we opted to pay a little extra and buy Annual Passes to the Resort. One of the passes gets free parking privilages however you still have to pay for your first day of parking. After 6pm parking in the parks is only $5 instead of $16 and with a closing time of 8:30 for the Studios and 7pm for Islands of Adventure we wanted to get to the Parks as quickly as possible to get our passes activated and not have to pay for parking again later in the trip. Plus we were really craving Butterbeer so if we could make it before 7 we could get into Islands and get the wonderful drink.

 

That plan was off to a slow start though when our flight landed in Tampa about 10 minutes later then it was scheduled. The race was on as we got off the plane and retrieved the stroller and made our way to the baggage claim. This was where the next delay came into play. At the baggage claim there were people everywhere with about 3 turntables going. But none of them had the flight information listed. It took us probably 20 minutes to find the correct turntable and then push our way thru the crowds of people to actually claim all of our luggage.

 

[TeknikDC2]

Once we had the luggage it was time to head to the Rental Car. On our trip to California this past December we tried Alamo rental car for the first time and became very big fans. We loved the automated machine to check out our car so that we didn’t have to deal with pushy sales clerks. And we really loved that you get to pick the car you want. Its not assigned to you like other rental locations. So I was very happy when I scored a Costcotravel deal on the Rental Car for a 1 way Mid Size Car rental from Tampa to Cape Canaveral for 3 days for only $62 bucks with Alamo.

 

At the Alamo location in TPA I went strait to the automated machine and got us checked in. This is where another delay came. As I finished up none of the rental contract info printed out that we need to claim a car. So we ended up having to wait in the line after all to get somebody to come over and fix the machine. Once they did though they couldn’t get our information to print out so back in line we went to get the info printed out at the main desk. For the troubles though Alamo upgraded our Rental to a Full Size car for the same price. Something I didn’t expect or ask for but a huge plus for Alamo’s Customer Service in my Opinion. Its another thing that will keep me coming back.

 

While we were renting the car the sky’s had opened up and it was a huge downpour of rain that was making the whole parking garage rumble from the rain drops. The Clerk out in the garage directed us to the row where the Full Size cars where but the car we ended up getting was actually right up front as it had just been returned from being cleaned and ready for use. I looked at the full size row but this one up front is what had my eye from the beginning. It was a 2013 Ford Fusion that was black. Inside it was fully loaded with Leather seats and pretty much everything but navigation. I’m not a big Ford fan but this thing was a very good looking car. We got the car loaded up where everything except for the stroller easily fit into the trunk. We were then on our way to Orlando.

 

 

It was a little after 6pm when we finally hit the road. About 45 minutes later then I had planned on. We decided to once again hold off on finding food until we got to Orlando as top priority was getting those Annual Passes activated. But the delays weren’t over yet. Remember that rainfall. Yeah it had gotten worse. And it progressively got worse the further from Tampa we got.

 

 

I have never driven in rain like this before. It was like a monsoon. The wipers were going full blast but you could barely see in front of you. The speed limit on the freeway was 70mph and we were stuck going about 35mph. Many cars were pulled over under overpasses trying to wait out the storm instead of driving thru it. Something that crossed my mind a time or two as it was bad enough to drive in something like this but it was even nerve racking doing it in a rental car that you declined the additional insurance protection on.

 

 

It became very evident with the delays and now this monsoon that there was no way we’d make it to Universal Orlando before 7pm to get Butterbeer before Islands of Adventure closed. But we would still have till 8:30pm to get into the Studios to activate the passes. As the rain wasn’t letting up though as we slowly drove to Orlando the thought also entered our minds. What if its still raining this bad in Orlando too? We wouldn’t want to go to the parks in rain like this. I figured I’d at least brave the rain and run to the park to activate my pass for the free parking but we likely wouldn’t stay that night.

 

Luckily for us though as we got closer to Orlando the rain started to let up and by the time we were pulling into the Universal Orlando parking garage the rain and completely stopped. What’s normally an Hour drive ended up taking us nearly an hour and 40 minutes to make. But at 7:45 we paid our $5 for the after 6pm parking and would be heading to Universal Studios Florida where we would be able to get our Annual Passes activated tonight.

 

 

 

Alright that concludes this update. I'd love to share more but I have to run to work. I'll post up part 2 soon. Please feel free to comment and ask any questions. I'd be happy to answer them. Thanks everyone.

Edited September 18, 2013 by TeknikDC2

[careycouponer]

Subscribing so I can find you again!

[Ehpride]

I love reviews that go over all aspects of the vacation. I can't wait to read more!

[Coolcruise02]

Great review! Can't wait for more.....

[Crusin Karen]

What's butterbeer? :confused::confused::confused::confused: