Our plan was to leave on Friday as soon as Rob got home from work at about 4pm. We had a hotel reserved in Henderson, NV that night. At the beginning of the week, Rob took his Suit and 2 of my dresses to get dry cleaned. We were told the clothes would be back by Thursday. We planned to take all of those clothes with us on our cruise. I stopped by the dry cleaners on Friday around noon to pick up the clothes. The dumb girl behind the counter had a deer in the headlights look and couldn’t find our clothes. Apparently this company doesn’t clean the clothes brought there, rather they contract out and send the clothes some where else to by cleaned. After making a few phone calls, she finally figured out our clothes were still in Orem. I explained we needed the clothes today and she promised they would be there by 4. So, Rob stops by the cleaners on his way home from work and guess what?!?! The clothes were still not back. He waited not-so-patiently for about 30 minutes. Finally he found out the clothes had just left the Orem facility and would arrive in about 30 more minutes. At that point, Rob decided to come home and we’d pick up the clothes as we were leaving town. Once Rob got home, we re-arranged the seats in the van and loaded the kids up and were on our way. We stopped to get the clothes which were finally there, paid (they deducted about 60% off the bill) and after getting gas and putting more air in our tired, we hit the road. About 5 hours later we arrived in Henderson.
On Saturday, we got up when the boys woke us and once again got on the road. Our travels today took us to central CA to a small town called Buttonwillow about 5 hours away from Vegas. It was there we met my parents who would be taking the boys to their house for the week while Rob, the girls and I went on the cruise. After eating lunch with everyone, my parents headed north with the boys and we headed south to Long Beach. The drive wasn’t too bad until we hit the 405. It was backed up for several miles. We had dinner at Togos, one of our favorite sandwich shops. Then, we found a Target and bought a few last minute things for our cruise. We then drove to San Pedro where we were staying in the Doubletree for the night. I booked that hotel because of their awesome cookies. I have very fond memories of staying in Doubletree hotels from when I was a flight attendant. They greet you at check-in with the best warm, chocolate chip cookies. The hotel is located on the Marina in San Pedro and was really nice.
On Sunday we all woke up around 8. After showering and getting ready for the day, we headed out in search for breakfast. We ended up finding a grocery store where we bought donuts, bagels, and chocolate milk. After breakfast, we went back to the hotel to waste some time as we didn’t want to get to the pier too early. A phone call to my parents revealed that the boys were both doing great. They had easily settled in and were happy being there. Cole had found a picture of me that he had been carrying around saying, ‘Mom.’ He wasn’t sad though, he was being quite matter of fact. 
Around 11:30 we checked out of the hotel and drove a few miles to Long Beach where we would be boarding the Carnival Splendor. As we were crossing a bridge into Long Beach the ship came into view. Avery had been pretty wired and exited all morning, but when we saw the ship her excitement elevated to a completely different level. We parked the van in the parking garage and hauled all our luggage to the porters. We went to the first booth of check in where we were given several pieces of paperwork including one we all had to sign saying that we weren’t sick and hadn’t had diarrhea for the past 3 days. We then got in line to actually check in and get our sail and sign cards. The line was fairly short and moved quickly. Before we’d all had a chance to sign the health form we were at the front of the line. Check in was painless and there we were handed a zone 6 boarding card. By the time we had our sail and sign cards, they had already called zone 6. We were lead into the dome where
we went through security. We posed for the obligatory boarding pictures and before we knew it, we were on the ramp leading to the ship. Another quick stop for pictures and we were on the ship.
Our first stop, the Lido deck of course for lunch. Upon boarding we were told our staterooms would be ready at 2pm. By the time lunch was finished it was approaching 2 so to kill a few minutes, we stopped by camp carnival on deck 10 so Avery could check out the facility. Shortly after 2, we went to our rooms, 8214 and 8218. A short time later our luggage arrived and we unpacked and rested for a bit until the muster drill at 4:45. After the drill, we made one last phone call to my parents to check on the boys. They were still doing great. We headed out to the front of the ship on the Lido deck for sail away.
There were only a few other people out there, I don’t think most people realize there are ‘secret’ doors to the front of the ship. Avery was frustrated because she couldn’t see over the railing very well so Rob lifter her up on his shoulders to watch. After being out there until we left the harbor we went back to our rooms to get ready for dinner. We had requested the early seating for dinner. We were assigned to the Black Pearl upper level table 224 (a booth for 4). We met our waiters for the week, Mario and his assistant Edsel, both from the Philippines. Our dinner was fabulous as was our service. After dinner, we went to orientation for camp carnival. We met all the counselors and signed all the forms to admit Avery to camp. ‘Fun Ship Freddy’ made an appearance. Rob and I quickly changed his name from Fun Ship Freddy to Freaky Freddy. FSF got on stage and threw out a few prizes to the kids. A red t-shirt landed right in front of Avery.
After leaving orientation, we went back to our rooms to put Avery to bed. We found our beds had been turned down for the night as well as each room had a towel animal in it. I’m not sure if Avery was more excited about the towel animal or the chocolate that was left on her pillow. A short time later, there was a knock at the door and it was our room steward, Elena introducing herself to us and bringing us a bucket of ice. All week she was awesome. Rob stayed with Avery while Shalyn and I decided to go exploring. We checked out several decks of the ship and then decided to find out where her age group, circle C would be meeting. We found the room and there were several kids (ages 12-14) in it getting to know each other. Shalyn decided she wanted to stay and hang out so I went back to find Rob.
Our first stop, the 
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