Marriage: Day One

It was a laaaaaaaaate night last night. Even though it was a Wednesday and most folks left between 9-10pm to get to bed for work in the morning. Mike and I stayed until the end. In fact we were the clean-up crew. After all my talk about not cleaning up my own wedding that is exactly what happened. Thank God, my maid of honor (who'd been with me for 48hrs) took pity on me and not only stayed, but made her husband come back so they could take a car load for us. It should have occurred to me that it took two carloads to get it there it may always require two carloads to get it home.

Future brides, plan your clean up. I was on top of set up (who would be there, what needed to get done), but somehow I dropped the ball on clean up. I had some people volunteer, but I never reminded them or sent out emails asking for help like I should have. We all made it home after midnight. We all got to work/school/our honeymoon in the morning we just didn't didn't look refreshed.

We didn't go right to bed either. We ate some more cake and opened presents first. Adrenaline. In the morning we dropped Isaac at school and made a Target run (to replace the overnight stuff that got left in my maid of honor's car). I used the electric cart at Target since we were in a hurry and I left my crutches in the basket, oops! Mike had to rush back for them while I said goodbye to Riley. After that bumpy start we hit the road. Thank goodness some people gave us cash because we didn't make it to the bank and there was somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 in tolls to get to the port. Make another note future honeymooners: leave earlier and set the GPS to no tolls.

We got there, took a $90 (cringe) close parking space and checked in. This was my second cruise, but my first time on Disney Cruise Lines. I kept telling Mike everything will be a little more efficient this time and I was right. We checked the big bag. Mike pushed my wheelchair and carried the laptop bag. I had my purse, the vase with my bouquet and the to go carton with wedding cake in it. We were in our room by 2pm (we were scheduled to leave port at 3:45pm). It was a beautiful day and we were so glad we got the balcony.

It was strange, leaving the kids behind and we were very tired, but as soon as we were in our room that all melted away. We were just newly weds on their honeymoon, phew. We have never not been responsible for at least one kid as long as we've been together. It really melted all the stress off. I'll never forget as long as I live, about 10min after arriving Mike started unpacking and putting his clothes away in the drawers! I was stunned. I sat on the bed slack jawed, watching this spectacle. "What are you doing?", I asked. "Unpacking, we're going to be here a while", he answered matter-of-fact as ever. I've never seen him unpack a bag before. I'm lucky if he takes the groceries out the bags. That was just the beginning.

The "I love you"s, affection and attention were easy and uninterrupted by kids or the daily routine. I always imagined getting on the boat and laying by the pool with a book while Mike did his own thing and we'd meet up for meals. It turned out we wanted to be together, imagine that! It was partly because Mike was usually open to whatever social, entertainment or vacation related thing I suggested (for the most part). I knew in the first hour this would be an amazing trip for us.

We watched the the port disappear from the balcony and then grabbed some late lunch. We were all the way forward on the boat directly across from the elevators which is a sweet spot. It also meant the adults only pool was directly down from us. Awe-Some! Even the life boat drill was kind of fun. Disney music playing all over the boat didn't hurt either. There was no "happy honeymoon" sign on our door so I called guest services to see what kind of fuss to expect. They told us to stop by for some just married buttons. We did some exploring and then it was dinner time.

On a Disney cruise you keep your wait staff and table number and rotate dining rooms. It's a neat system. We were nervous about having to sit with a table full of strangers, but they didn't show. They must have known we were on our honeymoon. After a delicious dinner we stopped by the room to change. There was a note tucked under our room number that said rose petals around a towel animal had been "delivered". Only, there weren't any. The bed looked like this

I was a little bummed. Conspicuously lacking petals of any kind and a cobra's not exactly a romantic animal. It was the first night of our honeymoon and how could Disney make a mistake? We assumed they'd straighten it out and we left. We took a dip in the hot tub and then went to see The Help. It was a great day.