From April 20th to the 26th, my family and I (husband and our 3 kids) went on our first cruise ever.
Despite serving 7 years in the Canadian Naval Reserves, I never went on ship, other than a day sail around Lake Ontario specifically for logistics trades that don’t normally have the chance to see day-to-day operations.
I was a clerk, and as reserve ships are very small, there are no clerk positions on them; all administration is done from land. I like to joke that I sailed a desk for 7 years.
Thus, in less than 6 days, I spent more time on a ship then I ever did in 7 years in the Navy, lol!
And I’m pretty sure it was a much better time than a Navy ship would have been 
I had talked with my husband a number of years ago, that whenever we go on vacation, I feel like I’m just doing all the same things I do at home, with the added stress of travel… I wanted a real vacation, where I didn’t have to cook or clean for myself or anyone else. So he came up with the idea of a cruise. And my oldest daughter suggested a Disney Cruise. I’ve only heard good things about these, so I thought, why not?
I had never wanted to go to DisneyWorld, but a long time ago when we were travelling by RV, we added a stop there “for the kids.” And I had the time of my life. So I thought a cruise might be good as well.
4.5 years later, we had finally saved enough money to go on that dream trip. That’s when my husband got a lung infection that spread to his pleural space and nearly killed him. We had to postpone the trip, which we postponed to this August. Since our 20th wedding anniversary is on July 29th, we consoled ourselves by saying we’d celebrate our anniversary on the cruise.
But in January, after an entire year and major illnesses for basically every member of the family, I turned to my husband and said I didn’t think I could wait until August for a vacation. So he made some calls and we moved our trip up to April. We still celebrated our anniversary anyway 
We had such an amazing time!
One unique thing to Disney cruises is something called “pixie dusting.” Guests go around leaving little gifts for other guests at their cabin doors; people hang little bags or the like for this. Another unique thing is that people go all out decorating their cabin doors.
I love the idea of pixie dusting, as most of the time when I make art, I like to give it away to people. So I made a few envelopes and added some stickers and a copy of my “Speedy the Snail” zine
The envelopes were made from scrapbook paper.
found an old pencil case that we were no longer using, and cut a magnet sheet to fit, then glued it to the back. I placed this on our door for us to receive pixie dusts if other guests felt so inclined.
I also had a lot of fun decorating our cabin door:
I made the round magnets and the scratch art magnets during crafting time on the ship!
The magnets of our wedding photo and our photo in our hometown I printed on my home printer (!) and then glued a magnet sheet to the back, which I cut to size. I’m in awe of how well my printer did the photo job—I just had to make sure to choose “glossy paper” on both the printing dialogue as well as the machine itself. Finally learned how to do it!
Already dreaming of the next Dinsey Cruise… perhaps in another 5 years lol… in the meantime, I’ll make more Dinsey-themed art, like Aristocats Trading Cards