Last July Lee and I were invited on a media tour of the Disney Magic cruise ship during the time it was out here doing west coast cruises. (My blog entry about that is HERE.) And of course that made us want to do a Disney cruise. 🙂

We talked about it, and several of you offered suggestions, and we decided to book a 7-night Western Caribbean cruise on the Disney Magic from January 24-31. We’ll be in a category 9 stateroom (has the large porthole but no verandah) on Deck 2. Since you can’t fly from California and go straight from the airport to the ship (unless you take a red-eye – and we’re too old for that!) we decided to fly in on Thursday and spend a couple of nights at Walt Disney World – we’ll be at Animal Kingdom Villas in a savanna-view studio for two nights.

So here we are just a few days away, and we’re starting to figure out exactly what we’re taking and setting clothes and other items aside. We’ve both read Passporter’s Disney Cruise Line book cover-to-cover, which has given us lots of good information. And I have to thank AllEars guest blogger Lori Edelman, who wrote such a great blog on her Panama Canal Cruise last summer. She has been so patient and wonderful about answering all of my questions about cruising – there are things the books just don’t tell you! Thanks, Lori!

We’ve booked a few excursions for our ports of call (Key West, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, and Castaway Cay), I have some spa treatments reserved, and we have dinner reservations for Palo on our final night.

Let’s see…we’ve also figured out what we’re wearing on all of the formal and semi-formal occasions (we decided to really go for it and dress up), and we have pirate attire, too. Though I’m still trying to figure out how not to bring 6 pairs of shoes! 🙂 It’s definitely going to be the most clothes I think I’ve ever packed for a trip!

I’m planning to blog while on-board – as long as the internet connection cooperates with that plan.

We’re excited – this is going to be a new experience for us, and we’re looking forward to it!