It’s a get away with a take away and I planned each day of it with you in mind!

(A printed schedule will be sitting on your bed when you check in to your cabin).

I’ll be your host for this unforgettable all-inclusive vacation. Below you’ll read how I’ve designed it with just the right amount of fun, just the right amount of inspiration — the perfect blend to make it a week of relaxation  for you!

It’s a  7-Day Cruise! February 19-26, 2017. Kirk and Chelsea Cameron.  Meredith Andrews. Michael O’Brien. Jennifer Rothschild… and you!

Ft. Lauderdale. Half Moon Cay. Cozumel.  Grand Cayman. Key West.

Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam Ship.

You don’t need to worry or plan — here’s what to expect…

Day 1, Sunday:

Board the ship anytime between 12:00 and 3:30. Head up to the lido deck for lunch, or a snack — the buffet is huge. Settle into your state room. Unpack completely and put your luggage under the bed!  Good bye luggage, hello new home for the next 7 days!!  Rest or explore the ship and hear the horn as we leave the dock. Gather at 5:00 for our “Welcome Aboard” with the whole cast of castaways… Jennifer Rothschild, Kirk and Chelsea Cameron, Michael O’Brien, and Meredith Andrews. Dine together at 8:00, and then attend a show on the ship or dance the night away or go to bed early and enjoy absolutely no responsibilities!

Day 2, Monday:

Enjoy breakfast in the dining room or on the deck, or even better, in your room! You choose it and the fab ship staff delivers it right to your door. It’s included. No extra costs or services!  Then board a tender to sail to Half Moon Cay, Bahamas,  a beautiful private island where you can hang out at the beach or enjoy any of the ship’s excursions.

Get back on the ship about 3:00, go to the pool or the spa or order some room service delivered to your state room — maybe some afternoon tea, cookies, and fruit (that’s what I do) — or a pizza! Gather at 5:00 for “Monday Mojo” with Jennifer Rothschild and Michael  O’Brien and worship lead by Meredith Andrews. Inspiring, encouraging and practical Bible teaching along with worship and guaranteed laughter as we Spill the Beans!

Dinner is at 8:00 in the dining room or you can eat wherever or whatever you please.  This is your vacation!

Day 3, Tuesday:

You are forgetting what day it is by now!  Today is a sea day, so as we sail past Cuba we’ll gather for “Tuesday Testimonies” with Kirk Cameron, Chelsea Cameron, Jennifer Rothschild and Michael O’Brien and Meredith Andrews. Then, join all the platform guests for hugs and pictures and autographs — meet and greet at 11:00. The morning will start you off to a wonderful day. You can lay by the pool, read, and relax. Or you can find tons of fun to have on the ship.

All that relaxing may be exhausting so you may have to go back to your cabin to nap!

Gather at 5:00 for some Fresh Grounded Truth.  Bible teaching, worship and fellowship with… the Castaways, then we’ll dine together at 8:00. If you aren’t up for dinner in the dining room, just order room service!  Shrimp cocktail, fresh fruit, burgers… whatever you are craving will show up at your door!

Day 4, Wednesday:

Board a tender and head over to Grand Cayman for shopping or swimming with the stingrays or whatever your little cruising heart desires!

Gather at 5:00 pm for some “Wednesday Worship” with Meredith Andrews. She will lead us in praise and her concert will bless your sunburned self. Kirk Cameron and Jennifer will also present a devotional thought to bless you. Dinner is at 8:00 in the dining room. So many desserts, so few evenings! You may need to get more than one each night! After dinner, hang out on the deck with your BFF or attend one of the many shows on the ship.

Day 5, Thursday:

Today, we dock in Cozumel, Mexico. Before you get off the ship, gather with your cruising buddies for some “Thursday Thankfulness” at 9:00 am. Jennifer Rothschild, Meredith Andrews, and Kirk Cameron will all fill your cup with inspiration.

Gather back at 5:00 after you have enjoyed Cozumel and enjoy being together for Bible teaching and worship, then dinner will be at 8:00 and if you haven’t yet, you must try the creme brulee!  At 10:30 pm we will Worship in the Moonlight on the SunDeck.

Day 6, Friday:

We are at sea today. Gather at 9:00 am for some “Friday Fun” with the whole gang!  Michael O’Brien will lead worship and offer lots to laugh about. We will start the day with fellowship and stories and prayer.  What a fab day to get a massage! The Spa offers specials and today’s just may be 20/20/20.  You pick which treatments you want and get 20 minutes of each!

Enjoy the ship today, try something new to eat, explore a deck you haven’t been on yet. Most of all, relax!

If you didn’t get to already, meet and greet the Castaways (platform guests ) for some hugs and pictures at 11:00!

Gather back at 5:00 for some Fresh Grounded Truth from Jennifer and be led in worship by Michael O’Brien. Hear Meredith sing heaven down and listen as Kirk and Chelsea Cameron spill the beans.

Dine at 8:00 — this is formal night, so if you want to dress up, this is your chance! If you don’t, no worries. Just eat on the lido deck or get room service!

After dinner, attend the biggest and best show the ship presents all week — at 10:00.

Day 7, Saturday:

Can you believe this is the last day? It goes too fast, doesn’t it?! Get your sunscreen and you’re walking shoes because you’re getting of the ship for Key West. You can disembark as early as 8:00 am so we won’t gather this morning. We’ll save all our energy for our big “Bon Voyage” at 5:00. We will learn and laugh and celebrate our new friendships. You will love the special surprises tonight. Then, dine together at 8:00 and eat as much as possible because tomorrow you’ll probably want to start a diet! Ha!

Sunday:

The ship docks early in the morning because reality beckons! You’ll hug all your new friends and exchange emails and Twitter handles so you can keep in touch. You are a little sad but you are leaving the ship with great memories, an incredibly rewarding experience, new friends and an “I can’t wait to do this again” attitude! I am so glad you came. You made it even more fun and meaningful!

Starting at $918 per person (double occupancy)

Reserve your spot today.  Limited Availability.

Now, I’ve been traveling pretty much full time for the past 10 years! If I can find myself stumbling through the same travel trauma with that much experience, I have a feeling most travelers may deal with some of these issues too. So, here’s a quick, easy list of solutions to make your next get-away trip of non-issues!

1. How to stop leaving your phone charger in your hotel room when you check out

Can you imagine how many phone chargers are left in hotels? A house keeper once told me that in a normal month, their staff collects about 25! If you do the math, that can add up to over 300 a year! It’s such a common problem — both for the traveler and the hotel who has to shove it in a bin in the back room — that The Wall Street Journal wrote a whole article about the issues our forgetfulness creates! So, I have found a way to hold on to my chargers and since I started doing this one simple thing, I haven’t lost a phone charger in years!

Do not go to the bathroom. Do not drop it on the bed thinking you will put it in your bag after you shower. Do not do anything with that charger except place it in the bag it will travel home in! Otherwise, chances are it will not travel home with you because it will be still plugged into the wall behind the side table or curled behind the ruffled sheets on the bed where you dropped it thinking you would see it and remember to get it before you left! Now, here is the only way this works: do not plug your phone in on the desk across the room or in the bathroom. Always plug in your phone next to your bed even if you have to pull out the bedside table and dig through layers of dust and unplug the clock you won’t use anyway to plug it in!

If you make the decision, “I will plug in my phone by my bed and I will unplug it and pack it upon waking on check out morning,” then I bet donating phone chargers to hotels who don’t really want them will be a thing of the past!

2. How to keep up with the little stuff, like keys

Part of the reason we lose our stuff and forget important things in hotel rooms is because we’re out of our routine. At home, you probably have a place you leave your keys, so you know right where to find them. But, in hotels, we are out of kilter and without routine everything feels so random. I have left my wedding band in a hotel room before. I have spent many frustrating times trying to find where I put my… well, you name it and I have misplaced it in a hotel room. Now, my problem with this is on steroids because I’m blind, but believe me, my husband sees perfectly fine and is forever asking me for my key because he can’t find his!

So, the solution? Put all your important stuff in the same place every time. Even though every hotel room is different, there is one thing that is always the same in each hotel room… the drawer in the bedside table. With rare exceptions, every hotel room has one. And you can take advantage of that predictable little pocket to help you develop a travel routine.

When I arrive in a hotel room, I take out all my essentials right away and put them in that middle drawer. Hotel key, jewelry, wallet… whatever my must-haves are. Here’s the thing, if you walk into your hotel room, drop your key on the bathroom counter, your wallet near the TV and take off your jewelry before you shower and leave it sitting on that cute little round table by the window, then, when you’re hurrying and scurrying to get out of the room, you can’t find anything! And, even worse, when it’s time to check out, even if you check behind you, it is so easy to overlook something because you sat it down in a random place. It is so much easier to just open that drawer, scoop it all out into your purse when you’re stepping out for the evening or drop it all into your back pack when you’re checking out. Once I began to do this in every room I stayed in, I didn’t have to think as much and get stressed out wondering if I forgot something.

3. How to avoided sinus dripping and dryness

Sorry if that is gross but, girl, it is a reality! I noticed after traveling a while, that most mornings I woke up in a hotel room, I woke up sniffling or with a sinus headache or a stuffy nose. I also noticed that often, my nose was really dry. So, if this happens to you, I have found a way to help manage it and even prevent it and it doesn’t include a trip to the drug store. Often, the dryness and sinus reaction is because the hotel room is dry and/or the air filter needs to be replaced — it’s full of dust and is sending it into your room. So, I get a bath towel, wet it and then lay it over the air vent. This does two things. It serves as a make-shift humidifier and it absorbs the dust so your sinuses don’t. And, if you want to really make it spiffy, drip some lavender oil (or whatever essential oil you prefer) on that wet towel and suddenly your room smells like a spa!

4. How to make sure your sleep is restful and uninterrupted

One of my favorite things about traveling is not having to wake up to the sound of an alarm clock! But there have been times when the alarm was set by the person who stayed in the room before me, and waking up at 5:15 in the morning when you don’t have to is not fun at all. So when you are plugging your phone charger in next to your bed, check and make sure that alarm clock is not set. Or better yet, just unplug the clock altogether!

Also, I’m always sure to bring a travel oscillating fan with me. I set it up on the bedside table, and it provides just the right amount of white noise to drown out hotel noises you’re not used to hearing, it keeps me nice and cool while I sleep… it’s the best! You can find one like mine here.

5. How to remember your room number

Hotels don’t write your room number on your key card for security reasons, and I get that. They often will write it on that little packet the key card is slipped in. But, sometimes, they just write it on a piece of paper (that I lose as soon as I leave the front desk). So we, as good guests, take the hint because we want to be safe so we don’t write our room numbers on our key cards. But, then you forget your room number! Okay, well, I do.

Maybe it’s because it’s a different number each weekend, or maybe it’s menopause, but either way, I found a way to remember my number. I make every room number into a Scripture verse. Now, if you’re reading this and aren’t a Bible reader, you may think this doesn’t apply, but, maybe this can serve two purposes. You can always remember your room number and you will read the Bible — at least one verse! So, if my room is 113, I will associate it with a verse in the bible. It could be 1:13 or 11:3. I pull out my bible app on my phone and find a book and verse. Note that Psalms has lots to choose from! Psalm 11:3 reminds me that if the foundations are destroyed, what will the righteous do? So, if I make every room number into a verse, I can meditate on the verse and remember the room number. Get it? Last week I was in room 211. I made that into Philippians 2:11 and it helped me remember it and each time I walked down the hall to my room, I tried to quote the verse that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord. Try it, it works!

Every traveler develops her own habits; these are just a few of mine. I would love to hear yours! In the comments, let us know what you do when you stay in hotels.

Day One

Check out days 2-5…

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

So much fun, right? And it’ll be even better if we get to go back with you!

1. Water bottle humidifier
Okay, now this one you can’t just pick up at your local hardware store! But, you can get it online or at a specialty travel store. It’s a humidifier that is smaller than most of my purses! Since I usually have trouble with sinus dryness when I stay in hotel rooms, this little gadget humidifies the air I am breathing! You simply screw a water bottle onto it, plug it in, sit it right by your bed and then all night you will breathe in moist air! And, I often drip some lavender in my water bottle so it freshens the fragrance of the room and makes me feel like I’m sleeping in a spa!

2. Extension cord
Yep, the most ordinary, buy it at any hardware or grocery store kind of extension cord! The reason I always travel with one is because you never know where those outlets will be and chances are, they won’t be located where you need them! Also, I rarely travel alone so there’s always someone else who needs to plug in their stuff too. So a long, multi-outlet extension cord not only gets your outlet where you want it—as in, right next to you—but it also offers a lot more outlets than the hotel room does. And, I not only do this for hotels and cruises, I bring along an extension cord when I visit family and friends too. It is a small little gadget that gives big convenience!

3. Luggage strap
I absolutely cannot, will not, travel without a luggage strap! There are two kinds I use. The first is only about 12 inches at its fullest extension. I use it to strap together my bag with my husbands. Or, I will use it to strap my backpack or travel tote to my wheeled luggage. That way, I am only pulling my stuff instead of loading heavy bags on my shoulders making my posture worse than it already is!

4. Kipling mini bag with strap
I am such a huge fan of the Kipling brand and this little pouch has come in handy so many times. I use the pouch to pack my little essentials and then when I arrive, I usually unload those little essentials in the hotel drawer and then I attach the strap on it and have a light weight messenger bag to slip my wallet, phone and keys in for the day! Here’s another link to more little bags I love.

5. ID and credit card holder
This little gadget is probably obvious why it’s so handy. But, the features I love about it is that it has a clip so I can easily find it because I have clipped it on my belt loop or purse. I put in it my hotel key and one credit card and my ID. That way, all the things I know I will need most often are right at my fingertips. No more digging in a deep bag or pulling off the backpack to forge through it! And, when it is clipped to my belt loop, I have the added security that if my purse or tote got snatched from my shoulder, I would still have what I need to get back home!

So, there ya go! There are some more gadgets I travel with but these are the few that I always have with me! Any travel gadgets you like and would recommend? Tell us in the comments!

1. Use lightweight luggage:
Let’s just start with the basics. Not only do you not want to over pack, you don’t want your luggage to weigh a ton to begin with. It’s just no fun to lug it around. So, if you start with luggage that doesn’t weigh much to begin with, you will never be over-weight when you check luggage with the airline and you won’t pull a muscle as you try to drag it into the hotel. There are lots of good brands for traveling light. And, I have learned from experience, you don’t have to spend top dollar. Look for nylon as the main fabric for your lightweight luggage. You can find a four-wheeled carry-on that is under 5 lbs.! I really like Kipling and Lucas brands because they have traveled well and aren’t the most expensive. And, they come in fun colors!

2. Choose one color family to travel with
Instead of bring every cute pair of shoes you own, narrow your wardrobe down to just one or two pairs of shoes. You do this by choosing just one color group to travel with. For example, in the fall I travel with either a brown wardrobe or a black one. That means, only one pair of shoes and just a few mix and match outfits.

3. Pack your outfits in Ziploc bags
And, speaking of making deciding what to wear when you arrive easier, this little trick will totally reduce your need to even think! I pack each outfit in a large Ziploc bag! That means, under things, and jewelry too! You can buy those more expensive shrink-dink bags that suck all the air out, but, is you simply put some pressure on your Ziploc, the air gets out and you can fit more in your luggage. And, then all you do is pull out a bag, open it, wear it and you’re ready to go. Besides, who wants to spend time in a hotel trying to decide what to wear when you can be out there having fun?

4. Leave room in your luggage and bring a collapsible tote
Because you’re sight-seeing and could possibly want to shop while you’re out, leave some room in your luggage for treasures you want to bring home. Especially if you pack in Ziplocs, you can leave a little room in your luggage without your clothes becoming a rumpled mess! I also throw a collapsible tote or duffle bag in my luggage so if I need to bring home a lot of souvenirs, I can just have a separate bag to put them in.

There are lots of ways to travel light; these are just some of my tips. But, if you have some, please tell me! Leave your tips and tricks in the comments so we can all lighten our loads!

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