{"id":7389,"date":"2012-09-30T08:34:21","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T13:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=7389"},"modified":"2012-09-30T08:48:37","modified_gmt":"2012-09-30T13:48:37","slug":"in-which-she-spills-the-beans-on-a-secret-shes-been-not-very-successfully-keeping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2012\/09\/30\/in-which-she-spills-the-beans-on-a-secret-shes-been-not-very-successfully-keeping\/","title":{"rendered":"In which she spills the beans on a secret she’s been (not very successfully) keeping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Y<\/span>ou may have picked up my not-so-subtle hints recently (so <\/em>not good with the subtlty) that we have something big in the works for this fall. And by big, I mean biggest IN THE WORLD. <\/p>\n

I have been trying to write this blog post for a while, and I can never figure out quite which tone to take. I still have trouble telling people I went on a free trip to Mexico last month because I write a blog. Hell, sometimes I still have trouble not apologizing for the fact that I write a blog at all – eight years later and I still twist my toe in the carpet when I tell people about the blog, even though it’s brought me not only amazing friends and connections but pretty much single-handedly launched my photography business and pays a steady part-time income and has led to a regular day job in social media and has brought me trips to Toronto and Vancouver and Mexico. And a cruise. Did I mention the cruise yet? <\/p>\n

A CRUISE!!!!!!<\/p>\n

Thanks to my amazing friends at Fisher-Price and their partnership with Royal Caribbean International, in three weeks the whole family <\/em>will be taking a seven-night Caribbean cruise on the world’s largest cruise ship, the Allure of the Seas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

*pauses to shake head and pinch herself for the 100th time*<\/p>\n

Although we leave in three weeks (!) I still don’t have a lot of the details. The ship itself sounds absolutely amazing, though: at capacity she holds more than 5000 passengers and nearly 2500 crewmembers, with more than 2000 staterooms on 16 decks. I simply can’t get my head around that sort of scale! I know we will make stops at Labadee, Haiti and Falmouth, Jamaica and Cozumel, Mexico. The ship has seven ‘neighbourhoods’ featuring a full-sized carousel, a zip line, five swimming pools and 10 hot tubs and a Starbucks. Talk about something for everyone!<\/p>\n

\"\"
Image courtesy of Royal Caribbean International<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As excited as I am about all of that, you know what I’m most looking forward to? A whole week to simply enjoy my family. Cheesy as it sounds, the idea of simply being with them with no need to worry about cooking, tidying, running off to guitar lessons or getting the groceries or cutting the grass… just a week together with my menfolk. I honestly think that’s the most wonderful part of this whole crazy idea!<\/p>\n

So I need a crash course in cruise culture. Anyone have any tips or advice? What to bring, what to avoid, how to tip, how to navigate two airports you’ve never been to before (LaGuardia and Fort Lauderdale) with three kids? Have you been to the ports? Are there excursions you’d recommend or avoid? And for that matter, any tips for traveling with kids at all? Share ’em up please, I’ve got a lot of learning to do in the next three weeks!!<\/p>\n

Oh, and the biggest question of all? How will I survive a week without the Internet?!?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have picked up my not-so-subtle hints recently (so not good with the subtlty) that we have something big in the works for this fall. And by big, I mean biggest IN THE WORLD. I have been trying to write this blog post for a while, and I can never figure out quite which … Continue reading “In which she spills the beans on a secret she’s been (not very successfully) keeping”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-away-we-go"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7389"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7415,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389\/revisions\/7415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}