2014 Family Vacation Recap

Our family took our first family cruise with three of the four children this summer.  Everyone breathe a sigh of relief with me that it is over.

Sigh...

I have heard people say before that they need a vacation from their vacation and I have never really felt anything like that, until my vacation with toddlers.  We took a vacation a few years ago with two pre-teens and that is awesome because even though there is attitude, they are able to go and do things and not rely on you 100% for absolutely everything.  Toddlers need you for absolutely everything.  Combine that with my constant concern that they were going to fall overboard and you have the most stressful vacation on record for me ever.

It's not to say that it wasn't awesome.  Hubby and I have never been on this exact cruise before and we still had a number of different and great experiences than we have ever had on previous cruises.  Spoiler alert - this one ends with a broken arm!  It was an amazing trip and I am glad that we decided to do it.  It just makes me realize that I want to take a family vacation every year and I also want to take a grown-ups only vacation during the year as well.  

We booked a 5 day Carnival cruise out of New Orleans, La for the very end of the summer before our eldest daughter was set to start school for the year.  We drove to Louisiana in enough time so we could stay in a hotel the night before the cruise.  We cruised from New Orleans to Progreso, Mexico and then Cozumel, Mexico before returning back to Louisiana.

I will be posting several blogs over the next few days and will return and link them here once they are posted.  I have planned to do:

a review of the ship that we cruised on
the ship room that we stayed in
tips on packing for a cruise
tips for cruising with kids
tips for road tripping with children
a review of the shore excursion that we booked
Carnival Programs review - Faster to the Fun and Bottomless Bubbles Soda program
Louisiana hotel review

If there is anything else that you are curious about or would like to know you can message below and let me know.  I am far from an experienced cruiser but this was my fourth, so I like to think that I know a little bit more than your average joe.

Thanks for reading!