Hello, everyone! It’s time to blog all about our cruise. For clarity’s sake on my blog, I decided to post-date each day (I am making one separate post per day because I took so many photos). Officially, I am writing this post on July 8th, 2022, but it is dated June 24th. I hope that makes sense.

June 24th is the day that we left for Sebastian, FL (where my mom-in-law lives). From there, very early in the morning we would go to Orlando airport (a two hour drive) to meet our flight for Denver, then Seattle. We would spend a night in Seattle and board our ship, the Norwegian Encore, the next morning. This post is just about Friday.

I started packing on Monday, and packed very meticulously. Every outfit in its own little bag. I packed a different outfit for every day, including a few bag and shoe options, and one Lolita dress (my Krad Lanrete’s Lost In Sea JSK, which felt appropriate).

Guess which one is my suitcase?

Of course, Dante was all decked out in his sailor suit! And I made him a better-matching, smaller name necklace that would look better with it.

Shortly before noon (when our Walgreens COVID tests were scheduled) we were officially off!

Better strap in, Dante…

Our tests done, we were off to Sebastian. I got McNuggets and fries for lunch!

Our partner drove all the way, since Christopher had a headache. He was able to nap a little on the way.

We got home to family in a flurry of excitement. By the time we arrived, everyone (including us) had received our negative results. We got ours while still driving, and that was the first time I teared up. But I still felt like something might go wrong… a missed flight, a sudden onset of symptoms in spite of the tests, something wrong with my paperwork (I went without a passport, using my naturalization certificate and ID, which SHOULD be okay, but I was stressing about it). So you could say my excitement was still very cautious.

On the dining room table there were special water bottles that my mom in law and her roommate (and our travel companion as well) made and designed for each of us, which also reflected the two cancellations. I ended up not using it during the cruise (there was too much alcohol to be had instead of water) but I love it so much.

Additionally, as you can see, there was an extra surprise for me of four Jurassic World Kinder Joy eggs. I couldn’t hug my mom in law tight enough!

Falling asleep on this night was really hard. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the mix of excitement, and dread from worry, that I felt all evening.