Trying to Find the Magic (Trip Report)

For those that don’t know and I’m ready to say the full words…I lost my baby bother (38 yo) to suicide sometime after I got my last text “I love you” from him at 11:18 pm CST December 14th, 2022. Frak, writing those words hurts. The first 2 weeks I was in shock but at some point during the 2nd week I made a decision to live my best life. So here I am not cancelling my Disney Magic cruise like I did my long Christmas WDW weekend right after his death. One reason I can’t cancel or transfer is because I booked VGT without insurance (as I do) so here we are bright and early on embarkation day.

We have two 5B rooms on starboard aft with a connecting door. So woot for that mom. My mom will no longer be joining so as to not leave my father alone but myself, my DD15 and my DF are going on a week long girls trip to Grand Cayman, Cozumel and Jamaica with three sea days.

Started this morning and now finishing. We are now officially on born and have booked the teen a massage during our adult massages tomorrow, bought length of cruise rainforest passes and bought the new premium Wi-Fi (you get a discount for multiple devices) for length of cruise. Since I drive a Tesla, we found a parking garage on 37th street that had chargers and took their shuttle directly to our terminal. Everything was just perfect timing (we spent 20 min charging at Tesla in Houston where they had free snacks and drinks and restrooms). We had no wait for parking garage or its shuttle. When we got here it was 11:46am and we had 11:45am checkin time. Very short security and check in lines and by the time we got upstairs they were boarding 1-11 groups and we were 9 so we literally waited no time. DF commented everything was perfectly planned so of course as liner I feel validated. We’ve now had our Cabanas lunch and our rooms should be ready in the next 22 min but possibly now. Once I can get out of this chair we shall check. I’ll take photos of the schedule and upload later.

Here we go, no more tears, just fun allowed from here out!

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Have a great trip! You deserve it after what you’ve been through. I’m looking forward to following.

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I hope you have a great trip. Hugs, he will be with you always.

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Sounds like a wonderful start to your trip. Hope you have a great time - I’m sure your brother would have wanted you to.

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Sounds like a great start. Looking forward to hearing about your trip.

Please be kind to yourself that is a horrible loss to deal with. HUGS

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Man I swear I did those one at a time so they’d be in order.

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Silver presents.

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Nice! Did everyone in the cabin get one? Are you all Silver?

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DD15 and me are. DF first cruise ever.

And one backpack for both but a lanyard for each person.

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Have a great (ailment free) time! That’s a lot of activities! Your TR will be an educational experience. I’ve never looked into Disney Cruises so hoping to learn what all the fuss is about!

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That’s just all of them. I’ve hearted things were interested in and it gives you a 15 min reminder. If you do that but you’re under no obligation to go. Like we’re all tired from our early morning and long drive so we skipped trivia and are “napping”. DD is officially asleep.

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I told the people our family name was the Three Amigas when we boarded and DD called me cheesy. What?!?! Lol

Also I’m surprised that we have connecting rooms but we have a solid wall on our balcony that we can’t connect but I could connect with my other neighbor on the balcony. Seems a weird design choice but maybe it’s so in essence you could have three connecting rooms?

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A big hug to you. I’m sure that wasn’t easy to post.
Have a fabulous trip.

I’m intrigued by this–the charging station had free snacks?!?

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Yesmam it did because it was an actual Tesla service station. I got fruit snacks and trail mix, a sparkle water and a regular water. It was lovely.

Also yes it’s why I didn’t finish the first post pre leaving. It’s hard to just be fully open about it but I think that we should be to remove the stigma. I feel a desire to protect my brothers privacy/image even in death which I shouldn’t have to feel. Which is more the reason I just feel I should say it. If more of us did, maybe we could make that stigma go away.

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Off to google Tesla service station locations.

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I’m so excited for you to take this cruise! Doing something adventurous can be healing after loss, and can help process grief, even though it may be tough at moments. We all have to learn to move forward despite the horrible things that happen to people close to us and far away. Hugs to you! :heart:

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