Our family had the unique opportunity to be invited to the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration at Walt Disney World and on board the Disney Dream. This is a conference that we paid to attend. During the Celebration we received experiences and gifts that were beyond the scope of a typical Disney vacation. I will mention those as I discuss them to properly disclose any of those extras.

On this day we headed to the Disney Dream for our first cruise ever. but, before that we had a Star Wars themed breakfast at Coronado springs. These breakfasts had character meet and greets and today’s included Kylo Ren and Chewbacca. Meeting the two characters couldn’t have been more different. We met Kylo Ren first. Kylo does not do hugs nor any autographs. the kids were a bit disappointed in that but the photos with Kylo were pretty funny. Neither one of the kids wanted to get that close to him. Who could blame them, he was a bit intimidating.

Chewbacca doesn’t do autographs but he does do giant bear sized hugs and that is cool. Each of the kids had their photo with Chewy but I really like the family one that we got. I was Disney Bounding today. I was trying to do a Disney Bounding as a Steampunk Star-Lord which represented Disney Cruise Lines Marvel Day at Sea. This outfit would prove to be a bit more of a hassle then anything else. I think I overdid it with the suspenders and bag strapped to my leg. Despite that I thought it looked pretty good.

After our Star Wars themed breakfast, complete with blue milk and Bantha bacon we boarded the buses to the port. We got on the bus with our new friends Kevin and his family. He has two daughters and Andrew and Eva both became fast friends while Allison sat with Kevin’s wife Jenn. We had a nice conversation all the way to the port.

The port was a bit overwhelming. We were carrying day packs because the rest of our bags would be delivered later that day, right to our rooms. I completely over-packed the tech equipment. There is so much that I did not need to have with me including a laptop and a larger camera. My Pixel 2 XL worked perfectly for everything. That and the GoPro, which wasn’t too large. I definitely did not need 7 external chargers. At the port we had a photo with Minnie, Mickey took a break right before we had our photo.

Once we got onto the ship it was beautiful. We were supposed to do a self guided tour but we were all beat and didn’t go that far. We did notice that there were some characters making appearances and we got in line to meet Belle. Belle is Eva’s very favorite character so any chance we had of meeting Belle we took it.

After meeting Belle we did explore for a while. We went up to try and find some food and everything was PACKED! We did’t get the memo to go right up to Cabanas for food, but everyone else on the ship must have. We finally found a seat next to the quick eats places and had some lunch. I then had to catch up with all the other conference attendees for a welcome party. While there the group of Dad bloggers who were in attendance got together for a photo. We were missing one of the guys, Chris. He had left before we got a chance to grab the photographer and catch us. There were 8 dad bloggers invited as conference attendees. I knew 3 of the four prior to the event. I got to meet the other 4 guys during the event.

After the party I ran back to the room and found that our luggage had been delivered. I went and got out the door magnets that I had made and then decorated our stateroom door. It was pretty covered. I saw some others that I really liked but thought that we did a pretty nice job decorating our door.

Allison and the kids checked out the ship while I was in session. I changed and caught up with them and we went to the opening sail away party. I thought that there was going to be a special area for the conference attendees but everyone was pretty much everywhere. We had fun dancing to the fun. Afterwards Allison and Eva went for a walk and I took Andrew into Vanellope’s which is a sweet shoppe on the ship where you can buy specialty ice cream and more.

while in Vanellope’s we met Froi from the Dominican Republic. He did some magic tricks for Andrew which delighted him to no end. He was very excited about magic and even more excited to get a bunch of gummy bears from Froi. I think he got 2 dozen out of the guy. We bought two Macarons to enjoy while we waited for Allison and Eva. When they arrived we went back into Vanellope’s and they met Froi, too. We said that we would come back but we never got the chance to do so. I really wanted to get an ice cream in one of the race cars, too.

We walked around the ship some more to explore before we went to that night’s entertainment, the Golden Mickey’s. I have no photos of that because you can’t take any in the theater but it was a very fun event. It was a musical event. We enjoyed it very much.

There was some time between the show and dinner. We had a second seating for dinner. While we waited we went to the fourth deck and played some shuffleboard. The kids were loving every minute on the ship.

Dinner on the first night was at The Enchanted Garden. When we were going in my friend Mitch told me to make sure I ordered a couple of the appetizers. Each night we had the same table and same wait staff. Our main server was Fiona and her assistant was Shurya. Shurya did more magic tricks for Andrew and new ones for us each night. It made each meal delightful. Dinner this night was excellent. The Lobster Ravioli that we had was exceptional. We also had some great main dishes and desserts. I think this was my favorite meal of the whole cruise.

When we went back to our room after dinner we were greeted bt the first of our special blanket/towel animals. We got a swan our first night and some chocolates plus the next day’s personal navigator. The person that does our room also took care of the bunk beds for the kids. The kids took turns on the top and bottom bunks each night. We were exhausted and Allison and the kids went right to sleep. I decided to check out the ship at night to see what it looked like.

It was fun taking a look around the ship at night. I enjoyed the lights and how quiet it was plus watching the water. We were cruising a little ways behind another ship and I could see that ship all light up and off in the distance. It was a great start to this adventure.

I’m writing this post over a week later because, it was a working vacation. While I was there as a conference attendee and had to be at specific events and sessions it was also a vacation and spending time with the family was the most important thing. So, writing blog posts every day went right out the window. This happened the last time I was at a conference at Disney. But for that one, it took 3 years to finally post up the posts and videos. So, while most of this is fresh in my head I will try and recap this adventure.