Travel Diaries: The Train Ride

I think it was still 2010 when my father-in-law announced that he wanted to take his entire family on a Disney cruise.  Naturally, we were particularly delighted at that moment to be members of his family!  Plans were made and a date was set, and then we found out Baby Girl was on her way, which would have made me ineligible to board the boat by the date of the cruise.  I offered to sit out the fun, but my in-laws very kindly decided to wait for Baby Girl and me.  So...new plans were made and a new date was set.  And in April 2013, my father-in-law finally boarded the Disney Fantasy with all his family in tow.

But before that could happen, we had to get to the port in Florida.

And, in the spirit of fun, experience, and memories, we decided we'd get there by the overnight auto train!

Well, the boys had a lot of fun.  It was an experience.  We certainly made some memories.  And I'll be perfectly happy if we never do it again.

It wasn't all that bad; it just wasn't as great as I had thought it would be.  If, say, the sleeper room had been perhaps twice as big, the bathrooms a wee bit less airplane-ish, the door-to-door journey a little shorter than the 26 hours it turned out to be, and the train tracks somewhat smoother, it would have been grand.  A few shots of Benadryl for the munchkins, and it would have been perfect.

But we were all five together.  And that?  That was marvelous.

The boys' favorite activity was tromping up and down the train, jumping over the parts where the train cars connected and making their way to the dining or lounge cars.  Add a little threat of danger, like don't let your toes get smushed between the train cars, to daily life and they are in heaven.  They may have popped their heads through the curtains into a few other passengers' sleeper rooms to give a quick hullo along the way.  All I can say is I'd neglected to brush up on sleeper car etiquette.

Baby Girl made quite a splash with her shockingly, painfully, amazingly high-pitched squeals, which she's currently in the habit of bursting into every three minutes or so.  Quite a few she's got some lungs!-type comments and then, a moment where we noticed that, although the sleeper rooms around us had been occupied at boarding, all those passengers mysteriously had vacated their rooms.

Oh, the humility of parenthood.

After a very bumpy night, both literally and metaphorically, we arrived to sunny Flo-ri-da!

It was still one day 'til embarkation, so we had a night to enjoy with the whole crew at the home of the Mister's brother's family.  Thankfully, this allowed for the time-honored tradition of Snodgrass Feats of Strength.  Thus, I present...The Mister on the Unicycle!

{to be continued}