All posts tagged: Travel

Our First Disney Vacation — Day Three

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Day three was once again a park day. We decided to visit Magic Kingdom again in the morning, just to hit any of the attractions we missed the day before (not to mention that with a three year old princess we felt that Magic Kingdom would be her favorite park). Then in the afternoon and night we hit Epcot to see the new Frozen ride and  IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth which is a family favorite (lots of good memories of watching this show when we were kids). We had a good time at Magic Kingdom. We started with an early breakfast at Crystal Palace. As many Disney savvy moms know if you want any of those “alone in the park” pictures with the beautiful castle in the background and no crowds then the answer used to be to make an early morning reservation at one of the restaurants in the park. Restaurants open at 8 AM, while the park used to open at 9 AM. So if you had a reservation for 8 AM you …

Finding the Value in a Disney Resort — Guest Post

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By Jennifer Cavagnaro I wasn’t raised with a ton of money. My mom was single and she saved for years in order to bring my brother and I to Disney World at the age of 10. I remember every single minute. We stayed at the All-Star Sports Resort (a well-known value resort on the Walt Disney World property) and we only went to the Magic Kingdom. It was extremely hot out and after only a few hours of rides, my brother and I begged to go back to the hotel and play in the pool. Fast forward 22 years… I’m a mom of 4 children and a true Disney lover! You might be thinking: “Four children? At Disney World? This woman is nuts!” Truthfully, I can’t argue with you there! I think my first trip to Disney as a mom was in 2009, when Brianna was 1. We stayed at the All Star Sports hotel, as it was the only one that I knew about and it brought back so many memories. Since then, I …

Planning a Vacation to Disney World — Where To Stay

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*Please note that originally I was going to do a post for all five categories, but Accommodations got toooo long making it a monster of it’s own, so I had to break the original Basic’s post into two. First we discussed My Disney Experience, ADRs, FastPass+, and Magic Bands in Planning a Vacation to Disney World — The Basics. Now we will go over Accommodations (Disney resort categories. Staying on property v. off, etc.). Deciding Where To Stay The first question that you may have is: “Where do I stay?” To answer that, we need to look into what Disney has to offer. They have three main categories of resorts which are based on price point. Value Resorts –  Cost: The cheapest of the three categories at an average of $150 per night. Price varies depending on season and room type, can fluctuate from as low as $93 to $200. They do have suites at a higher price. Accommodations: The rooms tend to be the smallest at about 260 sf. for the average room. Double beds or a King bed. …

Planning a Vacation to Disney World — The Basics

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The first step in this series is to discuss the “basics.” This is your starting point. While there is a lot of information, there is no need to feel overwhelmed; if you learn the following you will be able to navigate the planning process for your next Disney vacation like a pro… or more like a well-informed consumer. Disney has implemented several changes in the last couple of years in an effort to make your stay as magical and painless as possible. There are different tools and systems that have been put in place to make the booking and planing experience extremely easy and user friendly. We will discuss My Disney Experience app and website, ADRs (Advanced Dining Reservations), FastPass+, Magic Bands, and how to choose the right hotel for you. So, lets get down to business… to defeat the Huns… *Please note that originally I was going to do this post for five categories, but accommodations got toooo long making it a monster of it’s own, so I had to break the original Basic’s post into two. …

We Are Going To Disney World

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Photo Credit: Disney World Resort We have been meaning to go on a Disney World vacation since last year when our daughter turned 2. However at that time work got extremely busy, we also had to move our office, and to be honest I was not too excited to go to Disney in the first place since my Disney World experiences have always been stressful, tiring, and expensive. In the past, as a Florida resident, my family and I have gone to Disney World several times. My parents took us many times as children, and while I enjoyed it, it was never a magical experience for me. I never forget the last time I went with my brand new husband and my extended family. We were a big group (about 15 people, 2 of which were toddlers) and NO PLANING whatsoever went into this vacation. The powers that be (the people that were paying) decided to go on an impromptu Disney trip a weekend during the summer vacation. They booked a hotel in Kissimee that had a last …

Five Cruise Boarding Tips

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Recently we had the opportunity to go on our second cruise. This time it was in a Royal Caribbean ship, (our first time it was aboard the Carnival Fantasy), The Empress of the Seas. Once again this is one of the smaller ships of the float, which makes for a more relaxed experience. At some point I will do a comparison between the smaller Carnival ship v. the smaller Royal ship. Today I want to give you some tips on boarding your cruise. If you do a quick google search you will find that this topic has been discussed ad nauseam. But after spending several hours reading through many travel blogs these are the tips that most everyone seems to agree on. As far as my own experience I can confirm that these are great guides to follow. Some extremely obvious (don’t leave your passport) others not so much (bring a bottle of wine/champagne), here I give you 5 tips that will make your life better on embarkation day. 1- Be early – There seems to …

A Day In Nassau

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Earlier this year I had the opportunity of going on my first cruise to Nassau, Bahamas. We went on the Carnival Fantasy. The ship is one of the smallest in their fleet, but it was actually a pretty nice, relaxed cruise. I write about our food experience aboard the ship in the following post: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3. Now this post is our candid opinion about our time in Nassau. My husband and I were not very impressed with Nassau. This was our first cruise together and our first time in Nassau. We were expecting an adventure Anthony Bourdain would have been proud of… instead we found a very touristy town. Previous to the trip we tried to be adventurous explorers and did many hours of research trying to find authentic food restaurants, to find historical sites, and meaningful adventures. We came up with what we thought was a promising plan, rented a scooter and headed away from all the tourist hangouts (Senor Frogs?) and went inland to explore. When we went inland we were …

Food Aboard The Carnival Fantasy — Day 3

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Sunday was our day at sea. I spent this day relaxing around the pool with a few cocktails. We napped, and we ate… It was magical! Day 3: For both breakfast and lunch we just went to the buffet. For breakfast I had grits, ham, chicken flautas, fruit, and bread. For lunch we had the glorious burritos (my husband’s mission for the trip was to eat as many burritos as possible… somehow he only ended eating two though). Dinner — My husband ordered the caprese salad. It was good, with a basil pesto and oil, it was pretty yummy. I got the wild mushroom soup (one of my favorite soups). It was very good! My husband got the chicken parmesan as his entree (I guess he was feeling like Italian food that night). It was ok, nothing that exciting about it. The small side of potatoes au gratin was just blah, and the veggies were good. I ordered the lobster. I have to say I was very disappointed. It was just a tiny lobster tail with no …

Food Aboard The Carnival Fantasy — Day 2

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The next day dawned with a clear, sunny sky, which I enjoyed with a cup of coffee from the highest deck, and took lots of pictures of the sunrise… Lots! Breakfast — Since we wanted to debark as soon as possible, we had an early breakfast. We went to the dining room for this one, not the buffet. It was actually a pretty disappointing breakfast. There weren’t that many customers around, but they still had a hard time getting our drinks (coffee, milk, orange juice). We actually got our food before we got the juice. As far as breakfast I had eggs benedict with a side of corned beef hash. The eggs benedict were pretty bad, the hollandaise sauce was in mousse form (why?) which had dried up when they put it under the broiler (again, why?) and at that point it was a pretty dry flavorless paste on top of the eggs. The corned beef hash was more of a mashed potatoes with corned beef, it was a bit odd. All in all pretty …

Food Aboard The Carnival Fantasy — Day 1

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Overall we loved the food aboard the Carnival Fantasy. In the next couple of posts I will show you the day by day log of what we ate! Day 1: Boarding & Lunch — We got to the terminal very early in order to skip traffic delays (let’s face it, it gets very bad in the downtown Miami area). Because of this we ended up eating a very rushed breakfast and waiting at the terminal for a bit. Once we were on the boat the first thing we did was get lunch. The only thing open was the buffet at Windows On The Sea, the burger, and burrito place right outside. My husband got pizza which was average, we also tried a burrito which was AMAZING (my husband LOVED it, with steak, shrimp and all the toppings you might want what isn’t there to love?). From the buffet I got an assortment of salads and veggies and steak (see picture). The desserts offered were bad… just bad. Dinner — The first night on the boat the weather …