I fully admit that this blog came at the request of my two older children, who somehow still enjoy me reading the exploits of our 2012 Disney World trip to them (see old 2012 posts for that fun). So once we returned from our latest Pierce Vacation, and I created my customary movie of all of our photos and videos, talk turned back to why I didn't write blogs for our vacations anymore.
In truth, I thought it was too much. After all, I had just put together a 2 hour movie with all of our memories. Wasn't that enough? For a week, I stressed over putting the right pictures and videos in the right order with the right music. Prior to Elisa's party on Sunday (we skipped the Super Bowl out of sheer protest at the idiot refs that kept the Saints out of the big game), we all sat down and watched it and I was pleased to see the rave reviews.
But the more I started thinking about it, the more the boys had a point. While the videos and photos are great, they don't tell the various stories behind the scenes. The silly things the boys (or I) end up doing on trips. My incessant trip planning. Yep, everything. So here we are. I do remember from my old vacation blogs that I tended to get off the beaten path quickly and often, so I am going to attempt to be much more focused on the actual trip. You don't need to know the intricate process we went through to decide whether we bring a stroller or not. Nah, the vacation itself is much more interesting.
So where did we go and why? Well, I need not tell you that we are a Disney family through and through. Regardless of how others feel, I have no shame in admitting that I could go back and forth between Disneyland and Disney World and feel absolute happiness. I get that it isn't for everyone, but it is for my family. And I love that the boys truly love Disney as much as Elisa and I do. That being said, we had finished a Disneyland trip in 2018 when we went to California to visit Elisa's sister and our nephews, and our big Disney World trip in 2017 was still legendary in the household, so you might wonder which park we headed to. And the answer...shockingly...is none. Nope. We did something else. But don't worry, we found a way to still incorporate Disney magic. Or wonder. More on that later.
More important in our life (and 2018) was Elisa's big graduation. I'm so proud of her. After a great and successful career in Accounting, she had decided that it wasn't her passion. She wanted more. And thanks to her own growth and our own experience with Sam, she had felt that Social Work was her perfect fit. She started that journey in 2017 and never looked back. I beamed with immense pride as I watched her graduate. And because trip planning and vacationing are two of my favorite things in the world, her accomplishment begged the question "where do you want to go to celebrate your vacation?" Now, Elisa likes Disney and all but I would say she is slightly less crazy than I am when it comes to Disney vacations. She's generally good to step away from the parks every once in awhile. And this time, she was very clear in her goal. She wanted to go to Puerto Rico.
We had actually considered Puerto Rico as a trip earlier a year earlier, but with Hurricane Maria ravaging the place and Elisa still knee deep in school, we had put it off. But this was an important place for Elisa. Her grandparents were born and raised in Puerto Rico. She wanted to chase a bit of her heritage. I couldn't blame her. It also paired nicely with the fact that Elisa and beaches go together like peanut butter and jelly. She loves relaxing beach vacations. I tend to be a bit different. Oh, I like beaches but I like activities. But planning a more chill trip? Well, that seemed like a good challenge.
You might be asking, then, how Disney comes into play. It happened in the snowy winter of 2018. I was beginning my dig into Puerto Rico planning, trying to find the best time to go. I had slowly settled on the idea of a January 2019 trip, as it was after Elisa's graduation and also after hurricane season. As I was looking at emails during a break from one of Lukas' basketball games, I got a Disney email...talking about cruises. I paused. Then I deleted it. Elisa didn't like cruises.
In our family, we famously jumped on a Royal Carribean cruise in 2008 and, amongst other difficulties, Elisa just didn't love the cruise. She hated feeling like the ship never stopped moving, and hated more than it felt like she was still on the boat some 2 weeks after we had disembarked. I had floated the idea of a Disney cruise once or twice and was met with a rousing "hell no" so I dropped the thought. But then, I had to look...how good was Disney at cruises? Maybe they weren't their usual perfect selves. I typed in "best cruise line" into the Google and was met with countless rankings that put Disney at...#1. Of course. Why should I be surprised? Then again, I was also met with the reality that Disney was #1 in price as well. That definitely didn't surprise me.
After we left the basketball game, we headed to Starbucks with my parents and the boys. Elisa needed her latest Starbucks drink and it gave me time to do a little peak at Disney cruise itineraries. And as if it was destined to be, I stumbled upon Disney cruises in January 2019. And they embarked from...San Juan, Puerto Rico. Even better, because they were leaving from San Juan, the prices didn't seem nearly as astronomical as other cruises I had seen.
So we sat down with our drinks and I tentatively threw it out there. What about a Puerto Rico trip that slapped on a Disney cruise somewhere inside it? I expected the protest and the big no that would kill my Disney spirit. Instead, Elisa surprised me. She was generally open. Disney cruise? That sounded fun. Tacked onto her mandatory Puerto Rico trip? She could deal with that. Her only worry was her motion sickness. I quickly told her as part of my trip planning, I would research ways to avoid her motion issues.
I turned to my parents as well and they were immediately game. I mean, they already liked cruises and who is honestly going to say no to extending a trip to the very warm Caribbean while it is cold and snowy in Utah? So it was set. We were going to go Puerto Rico Cruisin'. In the end, we added one more to our clan (my Aunt Connie, who had also joined us to Disney World). And the planning began.
I booked the cruise and dove into the wonderful world of learning about Puerto Rico. While I have Disneyland and Disney World down, exploring a new place (and an exotic one at that) became an immense pleasure. There was so much we could do. I looked for hotels (and found awesome ones). I narrowed down the best beaches, islands, and activities. I slowly but surely put together my best itinerary. Now all I needed was a good flight cost.
As part of my trip planning, I check flight prices every single day. I was starting to give up hope that we would ever get a great price on flights to Puerto Rico. I had been looking for almost 6 months and the flights never dropped before $500 and were usually around $600. Before a Utah football game in September, however, we were sitting at Wing Coop having our customary wing dinner and I realized that I had failed to check my flights that day. I brought them up on my phone, believing that it would be quick confirmation at terrible prices and then I'd go back to my wings.
But then I saw glorious numbers. $325 for roundtrip flights to San Juan on Delta. I couldn't believe it. Just one day ago, they were $600. I immediately texted the group for confirmation that I could book, and then spent the next 15 minutes entering all our flight information on my little iPhone. One time, I thought I had lost the screen (and thereby my great prices), but somehow I did it. 8 plane tickets purchased. $325 each. For fun, I checked the next day and the same flights were now a cool $1125 to buy. Yikes. Talk about a system that reacted to 8 great priced flights being scooped up.
But in general, we were set. I booked our excursions on the Disney Cruise, arranged for veranda views, booked Puerto Rico activities, selected our final hotels (one for pre-cruise and one for the day we got off the ship) and then we headed into Christmas. There was something just wonderful about returning to work on January 2nd, knowing that in just one little week, we'd be in the Caribbean. See ya snowy Utah!
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