The Cruise That Almost Never Was

OK I was going to call this post "The Vacation That Almost Never Was", Shantel informed me though that no matter what happened, how many planes we missed or if we missed the ship, she was still getting a vacation and we were going to the beach, hence the new title and now for the story.

We left our house at 5am to make it to the Kansas City Airport so we would be on time for our 7 am flight. We had no issues getting our bags checked and making it through the long line at the security checkpoint prior to flight time. The plane pulled away from the jetway and was getting ready to take off when suddenly the engines shut down and the Captain announced a 50 minute ground delay due to bad weather in Atlanta, OK we had an hour between flights in Atlanta so this shouldn't be a big deal.

Well it became a big deal. Delta didn't hold our connecting flight for an hour, only about 20 minutes and we just missed it. The flight attendant had assured us that Delta would rebook us on the next flight, once again not quite true, we had to do that ourselves and since everyone else had missed the earlier flight too we had to go standby. I let the ticket counter clerk know that I had paid for three seats but we were willing to put Macen on our laps if it got us on the plane. That was the key to getting us on the plane as we were the last three passengers on the plane and there definitely wasn't a seat for Macen .

The whole time we were waiting though I was working Carnival's travel hot line letting them know what was going on and they told me that there were a lot of ship's passengers with that issue and that we just needed to hop in a cab and get to the pier as quickly as possible even if that meant leaving our luggage behind, because the ship was still going to sail at 4pm. I even searched the internet for resorts in Key West, Miami, and Orlando just to ensure that I knew what the driving distances were and what our options were so we would get our vacation. When our plane did leave Atlanta it was about 2:45pm. This is going to be close.

We landed in Miami at 3:50pm got right off the plane, left the luggage and ran for the taxi line and jumped in to the first taxi that would take us to the port. Luckily it was only about a 20 minute drive to the pier. Bottom line we made the ship but once again we were the last three on the ship as I walked on with the hotel director and the chief of security. We were going to get our cruise after all!! Yeah.

What about our luggage, you ask? We left it at the airport and started working with both Delta and Carnival who both went out of their way to make sure the luggage met us at Key West. Luckily for us we all brough swim suits with us in our carry on bags, which was great for bumming around on the ship until our luggage showed up in Key West.

Here are some random pictures from the week:
Macen was promised the pool every day while we were on vacation and he reminded us constantly, "Go to pool!!" was a favorite mantra of his right up with there with "Chocolate milk!!" and the varation on the pool theme "Go to beach!!"

As you can tell Macen isn't the only one who enjoyed the pool, I still like the water slides and this ship had a really cool twisty water slide and then a side by side racer slide in a splash park on the rear deck of the ship. We spent most of our time there. Macen even tried to go down the racer slide but he was too short. The kid was really angry about that, maybe next time buddy!

Boat drinks!!!!!!! Literally made to look like a Carnival smoke stack funnel and when you're done drinking, clean it out and use it as a piggy bank for the kids, marketing genius!! We might of had a few too many mojitos this day and gotten a little too much sun, but fun was had by all.

Macen posing with the towel animals that our cabin steward made him each night. He got a monkey, a puppy, a turtle, and I think the last one was a frog. Of course he promptly tore them up but he did think they were pretty cool.

Macen really enjoyed the cruise he was convinced that the water was a big lake and when you tried to tell him ocean, he would say no "Big lake!"Here is Macen staying at Camp Carnival after we got back on the ship after Key West. He had no interest in joining us in the pool though, barely even acknowledging our presence. This was the only day he spent at Camp Carnival though.