Dressing for a Disney Cruise: The Day (and Night) Before Our Cruise + The Coolest Summer Ever 24-Hour Day

Let's launch the series of posts delving into each specific day of our Honeymoon Cruise on the Disney Fantasy, shall we?

I'm starting off with our 'pre-cruise' day/night.

Our cruise set sail on Saturday, May 23rd, the day after the Coolest Summer Ever 24-Hour Day at Disney's Magic Kingdom. After picking up Lorenzo in the wee hours of the morning, we met up with Tink and Jeffery and rope-dropped MK at 6:00 am.

Upon entering the park, I headed up Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse to get some sunrise pictures. 

From there I met back up with Tink and Jeffery for some more attractions. 

I headed home around 3:00 in the afternoon. 

After dropping of the kitty to be boarded at the vet, I finalized our packing and anxiously awaited John to get home from work.

Once he was home, we closed up the house and headed to Disney's Contemporary Resort. Our good friend Keith Gluck treated us to a night in Bay Lake Tower as a wedding gift. After checking in, we discovered that we had been upgraded to a 1 Bedroom Villa with a Lake View! Thanks again, Keith!

Not only was this a special treat in and of itself, but it made it especially convenient to dip in and out of the Magic Kingdom to participate in the 24-Hour Day shenanigans.

We toured the room and headed down to The Wave to officially kick off our Honeymoon with a drink and light dinner.

From there, we got a roadie and walked to Magic Kingdom to meet up with some friends. We strolled around for a bit and rode it's a small world and the carousel. 

Oh, and we had late-night Casey's. I took this photo intentionally to show that it's not always glamorous on this side of the screen. Corn dog nuggets on top of a trash can? That's how we roll. (RIP you beautiful plastic cheese, you.)

Since we had a fairly early embarkation time, we made it an early night in order to get a good start the next day. Part of me wanted to stay and see the sunrise at 6 am at the end of the 24-Hour Day, but as I get older (and wiser?) I realize my body can't hang the way it used to. And I sure as heck didn't want to spend the first day of our cruise in a stupor.

That's our 'night before the honeymoon' in a nutshell. I promise I'll get these cruise recap posts up with more regularity. I'm really excited to re-live the magic!

Clothes: Equipment Cameron Tee (on sale) // J.Crew Toothpick Jean (use code GOSHOPPING to save 30% until July 20th)

Helpful hints for preparing to leave for a Disney Cruise:

*Since we were going to be gone for a week, we decided to put our mail on hold. This was a simple as a trip to the post office to fill out a Hold Mail form; you can also fill out a Hold Mail form online, but for some reason when we tried it said our address wasn't available to use that option. (Maybe because it's an apartment? I dunno.)

*I have a TON of houseplants and was concerned that they would kick the bucket after a week without water. I bought several of those glass watering stakes, but when I tested them out, I discovered that they didn't really hold any water at all and were empty within a day. If you have lots of plants, my advice is to saturate them the night before/morning of your cruise; I'm happy to report our only casualties were a couple of potted hibiscus trees that needed daily watering to begin with.

*Because we weren't staying at home the night before our cruise, we packed a small tote bag for our night in Bay Lake Tower so we didn't have to schlep our cruise bags into the resort for just one night.

*As far as packing for a Disney Cruise goes, there isn't a limit to the number of bags you can check. Be mindful, however, that any bags you bring will have to be stored in your stateroom. While Disney Cruise staterooms are on the larger side, they're still a stateroom by nature with limited space. We each checked a large rolling suitcase and carried on smaller rolling suitcases (I also carried a tote bag/purse). These four bags all fit underneath the bed in our stateroom

*Each passenger is permitted one carry on bag; this can be a carry-on sized rolling suitcase. As long as it fits in the security scanner conveyor belt, you're good to go. Remember, you will have to carry these bags with you until you can check into your stateroom, which is usually around 1:30 or so. We thought rolling suitcases, while a bit bigger than totes and such, would be easy to maneuver. They were!

* You can carry on your own booze (or any type of beverages) on any Disney Cruise. You are only limited to what you can carry in your carry-on bag, and no hard-sided rolling coolers are permitted. We packed one of our rolling carry-on suitcases with bottles. We wrapped each bottle in bubble wrap to give them a bit more cushion. We didn't have any issues at all getting this through security. I'll be doing a post dedicated to drinking on a Disney Cruise with much more information.