The "What Could Have Been" Vacation

We were so lucky to have my dad take the whole family on a Disney Cruise in June. We had been looking forward to this cruise for a year. Bella all year was talking about this cruise and how excited she was. She even got a phone call from Mickey Mouse telling her how excited he was for her to come aboard. We flew out to Orlando one day before the cruise departed so that we could spend a little time at Disney World. We met my brother Sean and his family there. We had so much fun. Bella was so excited to see Cinderella's castle. Lola loved the music and all of the characters.


Saturday: Bella and Andrew in front of the castle.



Bella and I driving crazy! It rained hard for a good hour while we were there at the park, but luckily it let up and we were able to do some more rides before we headed back to the hotel.

The rest of the family met us there that night and we were ready for the cruise the next day.

Sunday: The Disney Cruise Ship was amazing. It was so big and so clean! We were all excited to get on and had our picture taken in front of this portal. We had some great food that night and played in the pool. We also went to a comedy show that evening.



Monday: That morning we were at castaway cay. It is an island owned by Disney. It was a little hot, but the ocean was the perfect temp. Bella hung out at the kids club they had on the island, while Rick went snorkeling, and Lola and I hung out on the beach with my sister.



Lola loved eating the sand and throwing it in your face. She is so kind!



That night Bella and Brynn got to meet Lilo and we also went to a show called the Villain's (not so great, but still entertaining).

We all went to bed that evening and were exhausted.

Tuesday: At about 3 am we woke up to Bella crawling into our bed and then proceeding to vomit everywhere!! I was thinking "this cannot be happening!!!!" She threw up a few more times and then stopped. I was praying that it was motion sickness or that she just had some heat exhaustion. We were at the Bahamas that day going to Atlantis and swimming with the dolphins. Bella had to get better! We first of all did not want to lose our money on this excursion, nor did we want Bella to miss out on the experience. Luckily, we have a lot of health care professionals in our family so we were hooked up with Zofran (anti-nausea med) and Bella was doing okay. We headed off to Atlantis.



It was such a pretty hotel, but massive. It took forever to get where we needed to go and Bella still was not feeling the best, but as soon as she got into the water with the dolphin everything was better.



Our dolphins name was Brewster. Bella wanted to take him home.





Lola and dad had fun watching us.

After our dolphin encounter, Bella said that she did not feel well. I hurried and took her back to the hotel. I was so lucky that my dad's wife Linda came with me. It was such a mess trying to get both girls back on a shuttle taxi and back to the ship. Bella could not walk and Lola of course was to little to walk. We had a few accidents with both girls on the way back and needless to say I felt sorry for the woman who sat next to me. I stunk from both vomit and poop from the girls.

Bella got really sick when we got back and could not keep anything down. This continued on through the night.

Wednesday: I did NOT want to take her down to the cruise physician, but after two days of nonstop vomiting and diarrhea I knew that she was dehydrated. We took her down to the very bottom of the ship and she met with a nice old English doctor. He kept on calling her "scrap". They got her some fluids and then quarantined her and Lola to the room. Even though Lola was not sick, she was in the same room as Bella and could have been exposed to whatever Bella had so Lola was not allowed to leave the room either. This really put a damper on the vacation. They told us that they were not allowed to leave the room for at least 24 hours after the last throw up incident. They marked our electronic cards to follow us. Well that sucked to say the least.

Thursday: Bella's vomiting never stopped and she grew sicker and weaker. She missed out on everything. Rick and I took turns staying with the girls and going out. I, of course, loved the food and shows and Rick liked going swimming and the night activities. At least we had different interests and so this worked out well for us. I felt so bad for Bella! She was so sad and all she wanted to do was to meet Mickey.

Thursday Night: This was the last night on the ship. This picture was of Lola and Rick out on our balcony. We were saved by this balcony. It kept Lola from feeling like she was trapped.

Unfortunately this was Bella most of the trip. I felt so bad for our housekeeper....Disgusting!! But they were so nice on the ship and sent Bella a present and popsicles.

Friday Morning (debarking day)- Papa Warren and Grandma Linda felt so bad for Bella that they bought her a Belle dress. She LOVES this dress and wears it everywhere (Costco, grocery shopping, etc.). We left the boat and headed back to Orlando. We were supposed to stay another two days at Walt Disney World. Unfortunately, Bella started throwing up again that night. We had enough and at this point were ready to get home. We booked a flight to leave the next morning (American Airlines would not transfer our tickets :( Not nice) and we gave up our tickets for the next two days at Disney World to come home on Saturday.

Saturday Morning: The flight went great and we made it back to Dallas safely with no puking incidents until we entered into our car and then Bella just started puking her guts out. We called the pediatrician and were told to go directly to the emergency room. Poor Bella.

We were so disappointment with how this trip turned out, but we would do it again in a heartbeat. We loved the Disney Cruise and we are planning to do it again. You could not ask for a better ship or staff. Thanks to our dad and Linda for taking us. I felt really bad that Bella did not get to enjoy everything. To this day she still cries about not getting to meet Mickey :(. Oh well hopefully we can do it again soon.

PS I am sure that there are multiple grammatical errors in this, but I am too lazy to go through this again. Sorry!