When a mini trip becomes a Minnie trip

My last post here was nearly 4 years ago! Yikes! How can that be? I was on the solo trip that took me to my high school reunion in Washington State and it really doesn’t feel that long ago! I think we last saw me eating the world’s best ice cream and just about to leave Seattle.

A lot has happened since that delicious ice cream melted on my tastebuds. Let’s recap.

I have changed jobs, worked online through two lockdowns and contracted COVID twice. Days after that last trip, this humble blog became the catalyst for a new side hustle: writing weekly food articles for a local online paper. Yes, I am paid to eat food and meet the amazing people behind our city’s food scene! Sometimes, I pinch myself at how fabulous a gig it is.

Despite searching pretty comprehensively over the past years, I am yet to taste a better ice cream than the Salt & Straw’s Beecher’s cheese with peppercorn toffee that delighted me so much in Seattle.

Last year, I briefly flirted with the idea of starting my own sticky bun & caramel popcorn business. I dreamed up a name, created what I considered quite a cute logo, did some half-hearted test bakes, and even became a certified food safety officer. Why haven’t you heard about this new business? I shelved it. Maybe one day, but just now, the time is not right.

COVID played havoc with my other side hustle- Kazuri Photography’s momentum and vision. I need to be real and admit that this particluar side hustle is, at present, more of a side-shuffle. I need to hustle back some momentum and vision ASAP, in order to fund this next adventure!

A cruise! Did I book a cruise? Really? I am still a bit dazed by the speed at which it all happened. Cruising has never appealed to me in any way; EVER.

To me, the word ‘cruise’ has conjured up images of a stagnant holiday, cooped in small space, nursing a perpetually queasy tummy from the constant rocking of the sea- with food poisoning opportunities lurking around every meal. And I’ve always gloated that it is a cheat’s way to travel; not actually travel at all. Having to sandwich the exploration of a destination between the precise hours of 9 am and 4 pm feels restricting and tedious.

At this stage in life, our blog-worthy days of taking 7 weeks to travel as a family are absolutely off the table. Not going to happen. It hit me over the Christmas period, with a pang of deep regret, that we haven’t done a family beach holiday for years. Summer holidays mean the beach. Growing up in Kenya, our family would holiday at the beach for 3 glorious weeks a year, returning home, sun-kissed, hair bleached deep gold and having consumed dozens of musty- smelling Readers Digest’s condensed books from our beach-side rental and gorged on the mangos in the tree in the front yard until our bellies ached. Holiday perfection.

Somehow, since the saving mindset of our big vacations and the hermit-like status of lockdowns, I have fallen out of the habit of booking an annual beach stay. To remedy this, we booked a non- negotiable family long weekend on the South Coast for January 2024. Everyone MUST come.

Then, numerous friends experienced cruises over the Christmas break. I enjoyed hearing all about the details over the past couple of weeks. Stories about fantastic food, unsatisfactory food encounters (including a 45 minute rant at ship management to procure a better food experience); tales about the activities on board and the fun jaunts off the ships too.

All this to say that booking a cruise that actually didn’t start out as a cruise. It began as a long weekend at the South Coast, and like a pokemon, it evolved….. -into a cruise; a 6 night Disney cruise.

My Cheaplongweekendagaur transformed into Cashdrainingdisneycruiseacor. A Disney cruise is quite a bit more expensive than a regular cruise, so we need to wring every experience out of it to get our money’s worth.

I will be detailing some of the things we will be expecting to experience over the next little while. Stay tuned….