Let's start at the beginning...

We flew from Phoenix on the red-eye and arrived in Orlando, Florida at 8am Saturday, February 27th.

It was FREEZING cold and raining...


But we didn't care! We left our kids at home with Grandpa Jonesy and Colleen who drove from Wyoming to take care of our kiddos for the week (THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!).


We hopped a shuttle to Port Canaveral with a few other veteran cruisers who filled us in on everything we needed to know about our trip during the 45 minute drive.

Finally we were ready to board the Carnival Dream. The enormous ship is 21 stories from top to bottom and the newest ship for the Carnival Cruise line holding 3,500 passengers.

We found our stateroom and Adam's sister Sarah

(and her husband Corey and daughter Sophia) then went to surprise Linda and Phil.

We shocked the pants of the parents,


Then headed up on deck to bid farewell to dry land.


Phil, Sarah, Corey (Sophia on his back) and Linda.


(Jason, Adam's older brother, and his wife BJ were suppose to be with us but because of bad weather and canceled flights they didn't catch up to us until the next day in Nassau, Bahamas.)