Carnival Dream
Preparing for Carnival Cruise!
Preparing and praying about our cruise vacation, I created a book through Shutterfly. A picture book of what he could expect on the boat. Things to do and what the room looked like, etc. It was not welcomed when first received, but in the last few weeks before we left it was an amazing tool. He began to read it to Heath and me and seemed to be looking forward to the trip. Something to think about if you are planning a new adventure. Made with Shutterfly.com
The drive -
Tommy had recently been watching the original movie “Cars”. On our drive every time we saw an 18-wheeler, he would say. “Mack, you’re not Mack!” And I do mean EVERY 18-wheeler we passed!! It was a little much but seemed to be calming to him and actually pretty funny!
Encouraging himself –
Self-calming is something that he has always done independently. I am always paying attention to re-enforce the calming, but he has found a way to help himself. He definitely was using his methods as we exited the ferry and turned onto Harbor Drive in Galveston. He misses nothing when riding in a car and as we began the curves approaching the terminal he would say softly “It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay!” God’s grace over him in all these uncertain situations never ceases to amaze me.
The wait and his patience –
This kid… He was calm, stayed with us, waiting in lines, taking his ID picture, going through metal detector, pulling luggage… He was just awesome, going with the flow like he had done this 100 times. Our next step was walking through to the gang plank. There were backdrops set up for boarding photos. We were not fast enough for him and he just went on ahead of us and began posing. The photographers were quite tickled by him and we were too!
We did get with him for this boarding photo.
Lights, colors, people and present -
The people never seemed to be an issue. He watched and expressed his love of the lights and colors all over the ship. Lunch was being served on the Lido deck and we enjoyed resting there until our rooms were available.
Tommy had been asking for a particular toy for almost a year. “El Matador and Bulldozer”!! He would watch videos of people playing with it and advertising it on YouTube (I’m not sure how he would find it, but none the less he did!) The characters were from an older Disney “short film” and hard to locate. I did find it on Ebay and although I hated to pay this much for a little thing it was the one thing he was asking for and Christmas was coming. He is hard to buy far since he does not play with toys in a normal fashion and you just never know what will spark his interest, so we had to get this for “Christmas Morning” as he would always say when he showed it to me! Using this as bribery, Heath and I thought this would be a great thing to have (just in case) for boarding the ship. I had it wrapped in my purse and he knew that he would get it once we were on board. He jammed to music and relaxed with his new toys!
Things he loved –
A play by play of the trip would be extremely hard to document. Instead, I thought I would just elaborate on a few of the things he enjoyed.
Our room – We got a suite so that in case he did not handle things well we would have a nice roomy place to retreat. He loved the balcony (just as much as Heath and I do) we have never and will never cruise without a balcony! While still docked in Galveston, Tommy enjoyed watching the porpoises and kept pointing out to sea – “let’s go!” He was ready!
We found out through announcements that there would be many Christmas events. Tommy’s favorite time of the year! Santa rode down the elevator, we sang carols, and watched the tree lighting. It even snowed on board! Carnival did a great job with entertainment and festivities! Thank you Carnival for making this trip an amazing experience for Tommy!
Tommy attended everything with us: Toured the ship, took photos, went to evening dinners, enjoyed “The Lion King” on the big screen for movie night, swam in the hot tub, etc. We even ran into some friends from Vidor. He was a bit confused as to why they were there. Especially a coach from school, he looked at her and said “no, not you!” She just laughed and was glad that he knew who she was!
Cozumel –
My plans all along were to stay on the ship with Tommy. I thought that the return to the boat and the pier would just be too much for him. Boy was I wrong (again!!) With lots of love and convincing from Heath and our friends, they assured me that I would have help and as well as he had done so far that we needed to go to the beach. Tommy heard those words “go to the beach” and was ready! But here is the kicker. The beach is not at the dock like some other ports of call. We not only had to get off the boat, we had to walk the pier to the market and catch a taxi to get there. Once again – he did amazing; nothing seemed to bother him, except one fish… Tommy wasted no time getting into the water. I would wade out on occasion with him and I saw a baby fish. I don’t know what it was but it was shaped like a sword fish with a long pointy nose, etc. Many more families had arrived about the time that this fish swam by Tommy… You would have thought it was JAWS… He screamed and practically ran on top the water getting out, leaving all those around him with concerned looks on their faces because they did not know if they should be alarmed also!! It was too funny, as I laid on my chair calmly motioning for Tommy to come to me!
All done –
The four day cruise was just perfect for Tommy’s first. He did reach a point where he was asking for Tommy’s house. He never got upset, but you could just tell that he was ready to get home. He was not so ready to go back to school the next day, but he survived. We all know that good things must come to an end!
Looking back on our cruise adventure, I hope that you can tell that it was a great time. All of my worries and anxiety of not knowing how Tommy would handle everything were just gone. We so appreciate all the prayers that went up for us and him especially. God has really opened up a huge door for Tommy’s adventures. We are so grateful and looking forward to the next one.
God Bless –
The back of the book! Showing the ending of his adventure and his safe place!
