There's two types of vacationers... those who unpack their suitcase and those who do not. I am the type who unpacks my suitcase, and on a cruise vacation, I think it's critical to unpack and organize my stateroom on the first day so that I can easily find everything and keep my cabin tidy throughout the cruise.

I feel like most of the articles written about cruise cabin organization are catered to families with children.... and probably for good reason. If you're sharing a stateroom as a family of four, you have much less space per person. I don't have children, so I don't have to worry about organizing/storing kid stuff. Perhaps the over-the-door shoe organizers and pop-up hampers are gamechangers for families with kids sharing a stateroom, but I've never found it necessary for my cruising style.

This post is written from the perspective of an adult who most often shares a stateroom with one other person (either my husband, Aaron, or my sister, Rachel). I am by no means a light packer. I typically bring several pairs of shoes, a swimsuit for every day, a dress for every evening, and more "day clothes" than I need. I also pack a lot of camera gear. I am not a minimalist when it comes to what I pack.... but I'd also rather pack more outfits/gear than stuff to organize my stateroom.

Magnetic Hooks to hang bags, jewelry, and accessories

If you purchase one item to help organize your stateroom, get magnetic hooks. You want to make sure to get the very strong magnetic hooks (most have a rating of how much weight they claim to hold). Magnetic hooks don't take up much room when packing (though be sure to label them as "magnets" in your bag because they will set off the metal detector) and are extremely versatile.

On our New Year's Cruise on Carnival Mardi Gras, we booked Cloud 9 Spa Staterooms. What differentiates a Cloud 9 Spa Stateroom from a regular stateroom is unlimited access to the Thermal Suites, proximity to the spa, Cloud 9 spa bathrobes and slippers, upgraded Elemis in-stateroom toiletries, as well as a number of redeemable spa benefits.

We've booked Spa staterooms before on Norwegian Cruise Line, so we've appreciated perks like these in the past and had a prior spa stateroom experience to compare to.

The Carnival Mardi Gras is a relatively new ship, and the staterooms felt fresh in decor, and for the most part well-maintained.

Wow - the new year is upon us, and I still haven't gotten around to reviewing our New Year's Cruise on Carnival Mardi Gras! Rather than skip the review entirely, I figured I'd challenge myself to review our experience on the Carnival Mardi Gras before we embark on our Christmas Cruise this year (spoiler: I didn't meet my goal)! And in a heartfelt attempt to actually meet that goal, I'm going to change up my style of review a little from a day-by-day trip report to more of an overall summary with anecdotes. Also, if you'd like to hear about this cruise, I sat down with Doug Parker to talk about our time on the Carnival Mardi Gras on the Cruise Radio Podcast.

To decide which cruise and itinerary to sail to ring in 2025, we created a spreadsheet comparing ships, itineraries, and prices. When comparing price/value, Carnival was the clear winner - either the Celebration out of Miami or Mardi Gras out of Port Canaveral. Ultimately, we went with the Mardi Gras out of Port Canaveral because the dates/itineraries worked slightly better.

The last time I sailed Carnival was in 2014 on the Carnival Breeze. It was a promotional free cruise offer that I had received, and I remembered having a really great time. Landon had also recently sailed on Carnival out of Galveston for a Bachelor Party Cruise and raved about how great it was (of course, I'm sure the company and celebratory occasion probably had a lot to do with that). My parents and Rachel had last sailed Carnival in 2010 on the Dream, and this was Aaron's first time cruising with Carnival.

On our third and final day of the cruise, we docked at Disney's Castaway Cay!

On Day 2 of Stove's Surprise Birthday Wish Cruise, the ship docked in Nassau. However, since we've been to Nassau many times, we decided not to get off in port, and spend the day on the ship.

On our third day at Disney, we packed up our bags to transfer to the Yacht Club Resort and headed to Epcot to rope drop Remy's Ratatouille Adventure. I secured a virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy which wouldn't be until later in the afternoon..... or so Stove thought!

Our biggest worry in pulling off this Disney Cruise surprise for Stove was "transferring hotels." We were worried that he was going to call bell services and have them send our bags over to the Yacht Club, when actually, we'd be headed to Port Canaveral. We needed an excuse not to send the bags down... so we used Landon. He had just gotten in last night and "had to work" (typical Landon vacation activities), so he'd be staying in the room. Stove and Judy could move their bags over to our room, and either we would come back to the room to freshen up, or Landon would call bell services. Stove didn't seem suspicious.

We missed the Epcot rope drop by a little bit, so our wait time for Remy was around 45 minutes. This worked out well because we needed to buy time.

On our third day, we had a bit of a delayed start since we were out so late at Magic Kingdom the night before. I had purchased Lightning Lane Multipass to use at both Hollywood Studios and Epcot, but we ran into a bit of an issue where when modifying reservation times, it would only move my reservation and not everyone else's. We realized the only way to get this sorted out was to go into the park and talk to the Guest Experiences team.

On our second day at Walt Disney World, we had park reservations at Magic Kingdom. Judy had requested breakfast at Crystal Palace.

We took the bus from the Boardwalk to Magic Kingdom. I was on the bus when it turned 7 AM, and unfortunately I was not able to get a virtual queue boarding group for Tiana's Bayou Adventure. The rest of the family didn't seem to care, but I was frustrated because I was assisting with the construction of the attraction at Disneyland, and the team kept asking me if I was going to ride it when I went to Florida. Oh well, I could try again at 1PM.

I was shocked to see that it was already Halloween on Main Street. It was the beginning of August!! I guess the first Halloween party was taking place later in the week.

For my dad (a.k.a. Stove)'s 70th birthday, we surprised him with a trip to Walt Disney World! My WDW portion of the trip report will be relatively brief, since we had another surprise coming, but I do want to take some time to share our land-based Disney fun.

Since Aaron and I had the farthest to travel, we took a redeye flight from LAX to MCO. I've taken the LAX > MCO redeye many times (it's my preferred flight because I arrive in the morning and get a full day at Disney), but this was Aaron's first time joining me. While I can sleep anywhere (truly - I have a sleep disorder), and the adrenaline of being at Walt Disney World is enough to power me through the day, it turns out that Aaron is not as well-suited for redeye flights. He didn't get much sleep on the plane and was definitely dragging that morning.

After arriving at MCO, we went to The Club at MCO, a lounge that we accessed using Priority Pass through our Capital One Venture X cards.

2024 was a very momentous year for the Shinglebells! Rachel's Bachelorette Cruise was in February, she and Landon got married and went on their honeymoon in June, and our dad (a.k.a. Stove) turned 70 in July. We really wanted to do something big for our Dad's milestone birthday, but in the midst of bachelorette planning and wedding planning, we didn't have a lot of time to pull a trip together.