My first cruise with my parents was a family affair, celebrating my oldest nibling’s birthday at the age when they were tall enough for most rides at Disney World. This was not my parents’ first cruise, though I’m not sure when that first one would have been. As I recall, my parents had landed from a trans-Atlantic cruise and flown from New York to Miami on September 10th, 2001. They got stuck in Miami for a few days. This was, however, my only cruise with Dad.
My sister, nibling, and both my parents went, so we had two separate rooms in each place. This was the beginning of Mom’s tradition of taking each grandchild to Orlando for their birthday. For this particular celebration, we planned a full week that included staying onsite at a Disney resort, followed by a 3-night Disney cruise. At our last stop, the canoeing excursion we wanted only had 2 spots left, so my sister and I went canoeing, giving my nibling the option of the ship’s kids’ area or spending the day shopping with my mother. They chose the kids’ area, with self-checkout privileges in case we didn’t make it back to the ship on time for the showing of the new movie I recommended: Lilo & Stitch.
Over the years, it became hard to keep track of when my parents were travelling, with the cruises gradually increasing in length. When they visited before my black belt test, they were headed to a multi-leg cruises in Europe, and Dad’s final stroke happened on a ship that had already visited several places in South America and was headed to Easter Island. (Yes, a medvac helicopter from Easter Island back to South America will suck up most of your travel insurance.)
When Cassandra reached the Orlando vacation age, I organized the trip with just Cassandra, my mother, and myself. The first night was hellish, arriving late in the evening, then settling into a single room with tiny Cassandra kicking me repeatedly and my mother snoring in the next bed. In the middle of the night, I seriously considering marching down to reception to get a second room in the rather expansive, and not particularly crowded, hotel. On the second day, a friend of Mom’s messaged me and asked if her snoring was still bad… I asked why she hadn’t warned me! As it turns out, it could be abated with allergy medicine, which made the rest of the trip less painful. This was Mom’s first time visiting parks in Orlando outside the Disney brand – she had flagged Discovery Cove as somewhere to visit from talking to people on one of her cruises, and we visited one of the Universal parks. This was followed by another Disney cruise, which included an excursion to a chocolate factory where we prepared our own chocolate bars, and a parasailing event where we were the only guests.
Our last cruise with Mom, which is already well-documented here, was to the Galápagos in 2017. While she was a terrible roommate, sprawling stuff everywhere and complaining when housekeeping straightened the mess she left on the desk, we were all delighted by the trip. She was particularly proud of her first paddleboarding experience, as she managed to stay upright the entire time.
If you’ve spoken to me in the last few years, particularly early in the year, you will have heard me say that Mom was off on another cruise. Those have been 3 or 4 month cruises, sailing around the world or, earlier this year, pole-to-pole. The revised invitation my sister created for December, now for her celebration of life instead of her birthday, reflects her love of cruises.
