momof3cruisers

Gracious! Starting a review right before the holidays was not a good plan. I’m not being very consistent! I realized that I had actually gone to the late night comedy in the theater with both comedians and not Love and Marriage. That was the next night. The comedians actually reused quite a bit of their material which I thought was odd but oh well. This is now Weds and day 3 of the cruise. We would be arriving in Cozumel at about 12:00. The night before, we had gotten a letter in our mailbox to meet in the theater at 11:45 for priority disembarking. Being newly Platinum, I didn’t realize that was a thing. I thought that was only for tender ports. But C and I planned to be there so we could get Max off ASAP. Up to this point, we hadn’t been notified about any requirements for taking him off the ship, but since they had about 82 copies of his medical records we thought that must be all they needed. We were getting ready to leave the cabin at about 10:30 when the phone rang. It was guest services telling us that we would need to present Max to the Mexican authorities in order to take him off. They were not ready yet, it would be in about an hour or so. I told her we were leaving for breakfast and she said to just stop by guest services. So, C and I headed up to Lido. J had decided to try out the port day breakfast as he had woken up earlier. He got pancakes and bacon and said the pancakes were really good. Lido was PACKED!! It took forever to get through the lines and find a table. Right about as we finished eating, there was an announcement for Julie W… to come to guest services. So, C and I headed down while J went to get a Pepsi and sit by the pool with his book. Now, our original plans for this trip didn’t really involve getting off of the ship. The boys were for sure staying on. The goal of the whole idea was simply relaxing and getting both of them some sunshine. Both struggle with seasonal affective disorder so the fall in MN is really rough. I was intending to book an excursion in Cozumel once on board. I was debating between the one where you visit a church and local orphanage or the Fury Catamaran. I wanted to wait until I was onboard to see if J changed his mind about doing something. I knew C wouldn’t want to. BUT since Max was refusing to potty in his box, C HAD to get off the ship. I am SO thankful that the folks on the “cruising with a service dog” thread over on the disability board advised me to be sure we had all the paperwork needed for Mexico just in case. With all the potty stuff going on, I decided to just stay on the ship with the boys. We headed down to guest services (once again very thankful for that priority line!) and the young woman there took us to the library. We waited outside the library for a LONG time. There were no officials inside. Soon another couple arrived and they waited there too. They had their luggage with them. Sad. Maybe an emergency at home. Eventually, several folks arrived and got set up at different spots in the library. The couple was taken in and it they had to have their passports checked etc. I bet they were glad they had passports! Then our gal came out and brought us in. We went over to a guy in what looked like a police uniform. Guessing border patrol. He looked over Max’s paperwork which I was carrying in my bag wherever we went. 😂 He then looked over Max, checked all along his torso and then tried to look at his teeth. Max knows that people aren’t supposed to touch him while he is in his vest so the looks he was giving C were quite hilarious. Even the agent commented that the dog was thinking “who is this guy.” When it got to the teeth, Max was very confused. C wasn’t sure what to do as he didn’t want to interfere. Eventually he gave the command “open” and Max opened his mouth right up. The agent cracked up and told Max he was a good boy and was good to go. We double checked to be sure he could now reboard and get off again with no problem. He said we were fine but to be aware of the dogs who were checking bags as the handlers would probably have different instructions for us. C and I headed off the ship. I knew there was grass over by the taxi stand, so that’s where we headed. Job taken care of, we decided to do some shopping. C wanted sunglasses, I wanted a couple of cans of Coke and we thought we’d see whatever else we came across. Found a place with sunglasses and C was looking at some. That of course brings the salespeople. He found some he liked but there wasn’t a price on them. He asked the lady and she said $50. He looked at me, I said, “ I don’t know, dude. That’s kind of pricey.” He agreed. Now, we had no intention of haggling. It didn’t even occur to us. But then the lady asked how he was going to pay. He told her he’d be using his credit card. She did some fancy maneuvering with her calculator and came up with $40 and no sales tax. He decided that sounded good. After his purchase, she said, “you buy something, you get tequila.” Poured him a shot in the ONE glass behind the counter, handed it to him and said, “drink.” So, he did. 😂😂 As we walked away he commented that he really hoped the alcohol content killed off all the other germs. We wandered a little longer. Found some tacky salt and pepper shakers for my oldest who collects them. Forgot to look for a tshirt for my husband, got a couple of Cokes and headed back. We were able to avoid the port dogs as they weren’t having people walk past them, they were just wandering the crowd. Got back on board, joined Jacob for lunch. They went off to do I don’t know what and I played some trivia and other games etc. I had fun. Didn’t win anything but met a couple of fun ladies—a mom and daughter sailing together. ONe of the games we did was sort of like Pictionary. Except you had to hold the white board over your head and draw the item the crew member told you to make. It was silly but she wasn’t super creative in her ideas so it was mainly animals. Lol. There were only about six of us playing. Oh! I did win that one. I forgot. The first person to get three right won. It’s a good thing there weren’t all that many people playing because she was keeping score in her head! I got a medallion. I’m getting quite the collection of those! In the morning, we had asked the cabin steward to change the third bed to the upper Pullman. He had done that so I decided I needed a nap. It was amazing to lay on a real mattress! After my rest, we went to dinner. ( While I was resting, C got off and let Max have another potty break. We were in port until 7:00.) This was the first night we sat on the left side of the MDR and we were surprised how much more cheerful all the wait staff was over there. After dinner, we did a combo of karaoke, comedy and this was the night I went to Love and marriage. I have to say, there were a lot of talented singers in karaoke and both the comedians were great. Since those are two of our favorite evening activities, this worked out really well. Next post is the sea day and I’ll see what pictures I have to post.

Sadly, we thought of that too late. We’ll be working on that before traveling again.

Sorry for leaving you all hanging for so long! Holiday preparations have had me busy. My last point was heading to sleep on day one. Day two saw us porting in Key West nice and early. While normally, I think arriving into a port at 7:30 in the morning is fairly dumb, this time it worked out well—we had a dog that needed to go potty! So, C and I were off the ship as soon as we got the all clear. I knew that if we walked straight ahead we would get to a quiet street lined by grass so that’s where we headed. Max was able to relieve himself, we strolled a bit, finished taking care of his business and they headed back to the ship. I stayed in town planning to do a bit of shopping. Between the hotel in Miami and the ship, our toothpaste had gone missing so I figured I’d head for CVS and see if I could find a tshirt for my husband who was stuck at home working. The first store I went into, the tshirts were $35. Sorry, dude, not happening. I found a few more options to look at on the way to CVS but nothing really grabbed me. Maybe in Cozumel. Got to CVS and made sure we could have clean teeth the rest of the week. Forgot to by Dramamine. Sheesh! I’m useless without a list! It was already pretty toasty and can we talk about the lack of benches in Key West? Goodness! Not for the faint of heart, or those with MS who tire easily. Phew! I had hoped to go to the museum in the big red building this time around, Maritime, I think. But they didn’t open until 10 and at this point it wasn’t even 9. Both of the comedians made jokes about getting to KW to watch the stores open. Like I said, silly! So, I was a bit tired and I hadn’t eaten so I headed back to the ship to meet the boys in the buffet for breakfast. We all found some good stuff and decided to sit out at the pool on the back of the ship for awhile. It was a lovely day and we all had books to listen to which is one of the favorite things for all three of us. Eventually headed back to the cabin and Max and I hung out on the balcony while the boys took a nap. We were facing away from town so the view was stunning. We saw this funny little floating tiki bar. I’ve never seen anything like it! Several people were out on their balconies in nearby rooms and we all started talking about it. One of the guys figured it would be a good business. Build yourself a raft, take people out in the ocean and once you got them out there, you could charge whatever you wanted to for drinks because they’d be stuck. Hmmm, sounds familiar. Speaking of drinks, we had told the boys that we’d pay for two or three drinks a day and after that, they could pay for their own. Earlier, C had asked for a drink suggestion and I told him I was getting a sex on the beach. He told me he wasn’t ordering that so I said that a Bahama mama was similar. He ordered that. The bar tender at the Tides bar was a funny guy. He told him no, he would make him a Bahama papa. A lady asked what that was and he said it was a Bahama mama for a guy. lol. As it turned out, C liked my drink better so we traded but o told him if he wanted another one, he’d have to be brave and order one himself. At about 1:00, C and Max got off for a quick jaunt to the grass and right back onboard as all aboard time was 1:30. Then we all grabbed a quick lunch. At 2:30 there was a PG comedy show. One of the main things we like about Carnival is the variety of comedy so we planned on heading there. It was Steve White. He had done a show the night before but we were all too pooped to stay up until 11 so this was the first show of his we saw. He did a lot of audience interactions mixed in with his set. It was fun and we knew we’d watch him again. It started out with very few people in the theater but by the time he finished it was pretty crowded. The rest of our day was spent sitting outside either on the balcony or by the back pool. We spent a lot of time back there. With Serenity at the front, it’s mighty windy up there when at sea so it’s really nice to have an option other than the main pool. We had dinner in the MDR, hit up the stores for a wander and then the boys headed to karaoke while I went to the Love and marriage show. I joined them in time to hear J do My Way by Frank Sinatra. After this night, we were frequently running into people who just called him Frank. lol. Headed to the cabin at about 10:30. While lying on the indescribably uncomfortable couch/bed, I wondered how I was going to last three more nights. Man, that thing was hard as a rock. At one point, C looked up at the ceiling and said, “What is that up there?” I said, “It’s a bed.” We then talked about that it was a normal sized twin bed with a regular mattress on it. He suggested we ask the steward to put it down but I said I couldn’t climb the ladder and I was pretty sure I was also over the weight limit. He said he could climb the ladder and he wasn’t over the weight. He’d sleep in that and I could sleep in his current bed. Oh beautiful boy of mine! What an excellent suggestion.

You’re welcome. Thanks for following along. Well, if he decides to do another one, we’ll practice going potty on all kinds of surface areas if we can’t get wood chips. And yeah, they won’t be doing Sun Country again. 😂 Yes, it’s aggravating to deal with that. Especially because the fake ones often allow everyone and their cousin to pet their dog which then confuses people when everyone else won’t let them do that. We really appreciate the stricter policies. One thing we have noticed is that the questions about tasks have gotten much more specific about the tasks performed over the years. Which is fine for us and Max has several tasks that are very important. Miniature horses are actually covered by the ADA as service animals but since airlines have slightly different rules that they follow most airlines have made the decision not to allow them. It was a relief when they stopped allowing emotional support animals even dogs, on flights. We had a flight right after Southwest passed that guideline and there was a dog in the same area that was FREAKING out at Max. Max meantime, turned his back to the other dog. The gate agent walked up to check if we were on the same flight. I told her that if the other dog was on the same flight that we wanted to be rebooked on a different flight. She said, “Oh no. You’re going on this flight. They aren’t!”

We were hoping for wood chips. That’s what the guy on the phone said he thought it was. Alas, as we discovered quite awhile back, Max avoids artificial turf as well. Crazy dog. If he does another cruise, we will inquire about bringing wood chips on board or verifying that’s what it will be. Or book a cruise with a port every day.

I didn’t take too many but a good phone certainly makes a difference. Thank you for your kind words.

Appreciate that, thanks!

After the holidays, maybe I’ll send a message to the special needs department about it. we have found it’s much less stressful to just brush off people’s shall we say, missteps than stress about it.

That’s a bummer. Ten days ago the regular cakes were still available on Conquest.

Thank you all for the kind words. We definitely learned a lot and put a lot of our concerns to rest. My hope is to help people understand how to keep pursuing a “normal” life with a service dog as well as hopefully provide some education. One of the things I did before the cruise was to post in the FB page for our cruise and just straight up announce that my son had a service dog and to please not try and pet him or distract him. Pretty sure that helped a lot. MANY people would say, “Oh, you must be Julie! We know the rules to not bother the dog!” One mom who was not in the group but just a smart mom got n the elevator with her three kids and as they came in said, “Do not pet the dog, do not pet the dog, do NOT pet the dog!” That cracked us up! The crew were the biggest “problem.” At our muster station, the attendant asked if he could pet Max. When C said no, the guy stepped back and said, “Oh! He bites?!?” C said no, that if he bit people, he couldn’t be a service dog at all! Many crew talked to him and asked lots of questions which get old after a while honestly. I’m not talking in the four days of the cruise, just the cumulative effect of five years of questions. C gets worn out from it honestly, so I tackled most of those conversations. It gets easy to read people and how problematic they may be and those people are told the wrong name when they ask. 😂 There was a lady who worked in the dining room and we could tell the simple, “please don’t distract him” wasn’t going to be effective. We told her the dog’s name was Joe. We understand that in many countries, service dogs are unheard of and it did make us wonder if the crew got any training regarding service dogs. Maybe I’ll ask John Heald one of these days just out of curiosity. We have no complaints. You tend to get used to the comments, the weird things people say—ranging from one woman who was so mad when told she couldn’t pet the dog and asked why he was there if she couldn’t pet him, to a woman freaking out in a restaurant about a dog contaminating her food when she saw Max after he came out from under the table when we were leaving, to a man who aggressively asked C what was wrong with him one day when C and Max we’re at work. Even doubling down and asking twice. It’s a crazy world out there! That’s all for tonight. Chime in with questions if you have them!

We saw an incident with emergency response a few cruises ago as well. We were sitting and chatting with a couple when the guy seemed to drift off to sleep. No biggie, we were on sun loungers in Serenity. We continued to chat with her for a bit and then she said they had planned to get some pictures of the port. She woke him up and he seemed okay at first but then he kind of slumped back on to the chair. She roused him again, but then he fell to the floor. There was a crew member there by the hot tubs and he had basic first aid training. They tried to get him water and wet a cloth for his head. Within a few minutes two guys with bigger bags of supplies showed up, started doing blood pressure etc. Up until then, I had been basically patting the lady’s back and trying to reassure her. She was calm at that point, so after making sure she was okay, we left the area to give the medical team more room. No idea how things turned out. But they were definitely on call.

Strawberry soup and calamari. I didn’t eat the pepper thingy.

Us on the plane. Cozy!! (Sorry it’s upside down.) And Max’s box.

On the plane

No, my day got crazy and I didn’t have the chance to upload them. After dropping our bags off, we went in search of some lunch. We were all after different things so decided to meet toward the back of the buffet towards the Tides bar but inside. I was hot after all the walking and wanted the A/C. I got pizza, C did the deli and J, after seeing the line at Guy’s decided on pizza as well. Crazy when the pizza line moves faster than Guy’s. We relaxed for awhile in the cool air then decided to go explore a bit. The boys each grabbed a Pepsi on our way. Funny thing with these young men of mine—they rarely drink alcohol. The younger one doesn’t like it and the older one’s best friend can’t have alcohol for medical reasons and most of his casual friends aren’t partiers either. So, Bottomless Bubbles it is. I mainly drink water or iced tea with the occasional fruity cocktail. We explored a bit noticing the big glass flowers along the promenade on 5, and the very cool ceiling n the lobby. No pics of those though sorry. Eventually we decided to go see if the luggage had arrived and to look at the ocean and skyline from our balcony. We were port side on 7 in a balcony between the mid and aft elevators. I’ve been in that exact same cabin on the Glory and pretty close to it twice on Freedom. I like that area. It’s easy to get up to the buffet as well as the adult pool, comedy and the piano bar. We rarely go to shows so dinner is one of the only times we go forward really. And on this trip, I wasn’t sure if the boys would prefer to get other options for dinner. The suitcase was there as was Max’s crate so we got the clothes unpacked and debated where to place the crate for the least obstruction. We decided at the end of the beds was the best option, planning to make sure later that that worked for our steward. (He was fine with it there.) The plan was for each of them to be in a twin and I’d be on the couch. We hung out in the cabin and on the balcony for a couple of hours and then decided to take Max potty and check in for dinner as they both really did want to go to the MDR. I think I forgot to say that the box was way forward on deck 4. We had to exit through the fire doors right before the theater. Up til now, I figured those doors were locked and could only open if there was an emergency. Rather silly of me I suppose, but I at least expected them to be alarmed like on land, but they aren’t. From those doors (on the starboard side) we went pretty much all the way forward to an area that was nicely sheltered. When we first had been shown to the box, there was another one there for another service dog, but when we came back this time, it wasn’t there anymore. Hmmm. Interesting. Bad news about the potty box. Max looked at C like he was insane when he told him to go potty in it. The bottom wasn’t covered very solidly and it’s lined with plastic. We were pretty sure he was sure it wasn’t somewhere he was allowed to go. Oh boy. We planned to try again after dinner. In the meantime, being ever so glad this was my second cruise as platinum, I went and asked if they could see about putting more filler in so that he at least couldn’t see the plastic. One of the boys checked us in for dinner on the app and it showed an under 10 min wait. We sat and listened to the string trio while we waited. It would turn out we would listen to them a lot as the cruise went on. The boys loved that they played contemporary music on violin and cello and were really struck by how hard that must be and we all loved how they sounded. It was two young women and a guy about the same age. Very talented. Soon enough, our table was ready so we headed over to the MDR and were shown to a nice table for four. It was at an angle so not butting up against another table as they often are with that two inches of clearance. We ended up at this same type of table all four nights. My overview of dinners is going to run all together here. Every night our service was at a very good pace. Our food was always hot and we all enjoyed our meals each night. The only misses were my chocolate melting cake on the first night was almost completely liquid. (C had one later in the week that was much better.) C found the Cornish game hen gristly and it seemed to me that with the addition of chia seeds seemed to make the strawberry soup less strawberry-y. This first night, our wait team was not happy. They barely greeted us, not even when taking our order and were really unresponsive. For instance, C asked the head waiter how to pronounce his name. The waiter said it and C said, “Nice to meet you (waiter name) I’m C.” Nothing. At all. As he walked away, C was like, well that was weird. The second night we were seated on the same side of the dining room and again, no interaction no cheerfulness. Odd. The next two nights, we were on the other side of the dining room and both wait teams over there were friendly and cheery. The normal we usually experience on Carnival. After dinner, we listened to the music in the lobby for a bit and then headed to karaoke in the comedy club. Actually, we tried to take Max out again and he was having none of it. Oh boy. Karaoke was a lot of fun, some great singers, lots of fun people. J sang a Sinatra song and C did Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash. I did a Randy Travis song. They were quite a lot better than I was. They got their dad’s perfect pitch. We stayed til it was over and J and I headed back to the room while C took Max to try once again. Let’s just say, we were glad we’d get in to Key West early the next morning. There was more fill in the box, but it didn’t do the trick.

I love the little charms and for $5 don’t expect high quality. I bought a different bracelet to put them on as well as spacers so they aren’t all clumped together. Last week, they had new charms on our cruise so I was able to add to my collection.

Who we are: mom and sons ages 22 (J) and 23 (C) along with the 23 yo’s service dog Max. We have not taken him on a cruise before so there’s a definite learning curve with some things we never encountered before. I’m Platinum on Carnival, the boys are red and we have all sailed other cruise lines as well. Max has flown, been on boats, trains etc quite a lot but this is his first cruise. We flew into Miami from MN on Sun Country airlines. We have never had to pay to check Max’s crate in the past and were allowed a small bag to carry his supplies on other airlines. Sun Country doesn’t do that. So an extra $90 for the crate to get there and back. And another $90 to move J up to the “best” seats so he could be near us. And since he has broad shoulders and is 6’4”, I was not wanting to engage in cruel and unusual punishment by cramming him into a tiny space. Now, we need to talk about “best” seats. They are the best available and it was very kind of them to upgrade me and C to that category as a courtesy. However, I was told he was putting us in the bulkhead seats. He did not. I questioned him since it was row two and was assured it was the bulkhead. It was not. As mentioned, J is a big guy. C is not as broad but he is 6’5” with a 45 lb dog. As we got to our row, C turned to me and said, “So, where am I putting Max?” The photo shows where he put Max. LOL We are very lucky that he is the easiest going dog in the world. Neither of the boys’ shoulders fit in the confines of their seats, and I’m not a small lady so the flight felt a bit cramped. But we got through it and arrived in a very warm Miami. Got our luggage and headed out to wait for the hotel shuttle. And wait. And wait. After quite awhile, we gave up and decided it wasn’t worth the wait and went to the taxi area. We stayed at Staybridge Suites Blue Lagoon. It’s kind of in an inconvenient area and I probably wouldn’t stay there again, but we needed three separate places to sleep and this room had a sofa bed and was a reasonable price. It was only 12:30 when we arrived so the room wasn’t ready yet, but they have a very nice lobby so we hung out there and got Subway delivered through GrubHub. Soon after our lunch arrived, she called us up as our room was ready so we were in our room by a bit after 2:00. We had gotten up at 4:30 so we all decided to take a nap. The sofa bed was very comfy although, I just slept on it as a couch. The boys beds were good too. And the room was large with plenty of room. We got up, went to dinner at Bubba Gump at Bayside. That was a bad call on my part. Wayyyyyy too traficky. It wasn’t our original intention but it seems as though I clicked on the wrong destination in the Uber app. So, by the time we got back to the hotel it was like 10:00. We all read for awhile and after deciding not to bother with breakfast, set an alarm and nodded off to sleep. Boarding—We decided to take a shuttle from our hotel. Should have taken an Uber and left earlier. I had seen on Facebook that practically everyone had an arrival window of 11-11:30. That should have been a good hint. By the time we got through security, Diamonds and Suites were boarding. We were taken to an office where they made a copy of Max’s medical records to send to the ship. The special needs department had told me that had been done already but oh well. As we stood waiting for them to hand us back the paperwork they called Platinum. When they gave it back, we had to go to a different counter for a specialized check in. Then, it didn’t say in the system that they had sent a copy of the records, so she made another copy. Can’t have too many I guess. At this point they were boarding all zones and we headed onto the ship. First stop was guest services to find out where his potty box was. Happy for platinum to get ahead of the rest of that line at least. And guess what?? They needed to make a copy of Max’s health records. 😂😂😂 She took us to the box which had some weird stuff in the bottom and it wasn’t covering all of the plastic the box was lined with. That was not going to work. This dog is too well trained to go on a non-natural surface. So, we asked them to add another few inches which when we went back later they had done. We will get back to the potty box in a bit. We then headed to do muster which was quick and painless. Unknown to each of C and myself we were both thinking the same thing “what do we do with Max if we have to jump into the ocean for some emergency situation? We decided to drop our bags in the room at that point and discovered that there was a doggy life jacket waiting for him! I was quite impressed and C was relieved. I now also understood why the special needs department had asked me how much Max weighed. More and pictures to come tomorrow.

I’m surprised you have seen trash cans on other lines. I remember one of my sisters carrying around a paper coffee cup for an age on her first cruise because she wouldn’t believe the two of us who had sailed before that she just needed to set it on a table somewhere. This was on Princess and up to that point, I had never sailed Carnival. Only Princess, Disney and NCL.

That would definitely be even more uncomfortable. 🥴

My son uses “Watch me.” For the exact same scenarios. He started by tapping the hand with the treat on his chest to get Max to follow the treat and incorporate the action with the command. They also played a game where my son would say the dog’s name and as soon as he made eye contact, he’d get his treat. That’s also really helpful. And then the clever part of the training came in teaching him NOT to look at anyone else who says his name while he is in his vest. (Our trainer had worked in Iraq and Afghanistan training military dogs and his dog would only listen to him if he was within eyesight. He had some good tricks.) My son would hold the treat and have his dog watch him and then we would have various people say his name or greet him. If he’d start to turn his head, my son would give the “watch me” command. This is helpful because if people ask his name, and then try to say “Hi Max.” He ignores them. At first, my son lied to people and would give a fake name but now his dog is so good at ignoring people, it doesn’t matter. Out of his vest, he will respond to his name from others though.

Our Carnival cruise departs next Monday. I will let you know about the relief area when we get back.

Oh yeah, plenty of experience with working and so called working dogs but the TSA required us to go to a different security line. I’m sure because they don’t trust the people who claim they have service dogs that we all know aren’t. I was hoping for an experience with the dogs Carnival is using.

I am also sailing on Carnival. Next week in fact. One thing that I have realized, Carnival is using drug dogs during embarkation. Once at the airport, we had to go to an alternate security line because the TSA was using dogs. Any ideas what cruise lines do about this?

What lovely timing. Sailing next week out of Miami but on little Conquest. However, this week, I am sick in bed. So instead of getting ready for my cruise, I’ll read about yours.

I’ve been on that thread quite a bit. Should have thought to ask them. 🤦🏻‍♀️