I want to share a tip that my sister thought of this past summer while we were at Disney World. If you are going there with small children (and most likely you are), put a piece of tape on their back with your name and phone number. Heaven forbid if they were to get lost, your contact information with be right there. (Thankfully no one got lost on our trip, but with thousands of kids running amuck, it could so easily happen)!

Just for fun, here are a few pictures from our summer vacation to Disney World and a Disney Cruise. My parents had been planning this trip for a long time. It turned out to be really special, just as they had hoped. Our kids still talk about it almost daily. We are so grateful to have had such a marvelous time. Since there are 17 people in my family now that most of us are married and have children, it’s really difficult to go on vacations together, with all the rental cars and separate hotels, etc. So a cruise was a really great option. We didn’t have to worry about traveling or cooking or finding things to do. Everything was taken care of for us, which was incredible. Of course the best part was just having our whole family together.(and its taken me this long to go through the 600 pictures I took)!

This ship is called the Disney Dream.

Here it is inside.

There is an amazing kid’s club, where your kids can hang out pretty much any time. We liked taking them after they were finished with their dinner, so the adults could sit and talk. I was blown away by how cool the rooms are. This is “Pixie Hollow.”

This is the Toy Story room.

This is the Monsters, Inc room

Here’s a video gaming room.

Here is an art studio.

Even the bathroom is cute!

The entertainment on our ship was seriously outstanding. There is a new show every evening, and was one of my favorite parts of the whole cruise.

Doesn’t that look magical?

And then there’s the restaurants. They are so gorgeous!

There are characters and princesses roaming the ship at certain times of the day. It is so fun to see!

One of the very best parts of the cruise is that all the crew members were so nice to us. They all seemed very happy and were incredibly hard workers. Disney must treats its employees well, because they were so cheerful, which even made the experience more magical.

Here are some views of the top of the ship. There is a huge waterslide that goes around the perimeter of the ship.

There is so much to do on the ship that we hardly had any time to just relax!

The ship sails to an island in the Bahamas owned by Disney, called Castaway Cay. The only people on the island are the cruise vacationers and employees. It was heaven!

I made a very bad decision one morning to run a 5k. It was miserably hot. 

Thankfully it was followed by a day at the beach!

There is a family beach, a teenager beach, an adults only beach, and not surprisingly….

 a kid beach!

 There is a BBQ on the island, where its all you can eat goodness.

I thought this beach wheelchair was awesome!

And that this lady’s t-shirt was hilarious!!!

Of course we loved this Ode to South Dakota.

One of the stops we made was at Nassau. Here are a few pictures.

The famous hotel Atlantis.

Back on the mainland, there’s another random thing we like to do in Orlando. There’s a place called the Gaylord Palm Springs, that is just incredible inside. They have an amazing buffet restaurant that we like to eat at.