Vacation Anticipation

We are 80-something days away from our big Disney Fantasy cruise vacation. My youngest keeps asking every day if we are going "tomorrow". My 6-year-old wants to know the exact number of days. We just gotta get through the rest of the summer and our trip will be almost here!

To keep our kids' interest levels and excitement levels in check for our trips, we always do some pre-trip activities. The anticipation of each trip is half the fun! For previous cruise vacations, we have constructed paper cruise ships and practiced snorkeling. 

For this upcoming trip, we did another search at the library for any new books or videos we could check out before our cruise. We had already checked out some books that taught us ship terminology (like port vs. starboard, aft vs. forward, etc.) My oldest son found two chapter books about mysteries on cruise ships.

We also found a video at the library about cruise ship ports that covered our two island destinations, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. The video gave a brief history of each island and covered some of the things you could do there on port excursions. The kids got really excited when they saw all there is to do!

We watch a few YouTube videos each week that show people's vacations on The Fantasy. The kids also like watching our YouTube videos of our previous cruises. This week, Disney Cruise Line released a new promotional video that describes some of the extra activities on board in September and October for Halloween on the High Seas (which was tested last year in a limited way and is being expanded this year):



The video gave me the idea to rent The Nightmare Before Christmas, since I don't think my kids have seen that.

I've been chatting with other adults on our cruise on a private Facebook page. It has been great sharing ideas about port adventures and asking/answering questions about the cruise.

I've been accumulating graphics to make into magnets to stick on our stateroom door:

I'm also busy trying to figure out what we will hand out as gifts for the Fish Extender Exchange, as well as brainstorming on costumes for the costume party and pirate night.

When we get a little closer, we will make and put up the countdown chain.

We're in the home stretch now!

Do you do any fun or educational activities in preparation for a vacation?