Travel Schue: Changing the Way We Travel

Many of you know that Ethan has become quite the little traveler in his first year of life.  We've flown five times, taken plenty of road trips, and spent countless hours packing and unpacking in preparation for our getaways {you can read about our "must have" items for traveling with baby here}.

As Ethan gets older, {and he gets harder to entertain/distract}, we will have to be more thoughtful in how we plan our trips.  For example, we'll probably opt to rent a house versus stay in a hotel, visit the zoo versus get a spa treatment, and find kid-friendly restaurants versus dining at a fancy bistro.  Our future trips will definitely change, but I realized that we don't have to sacrifice all the things we love about vacationing just because we have Ethan...we just have to be more strategic.

Enter Norwegian Cruise Line.  I've never been on a cruise, but have always wanted to sail to Alaska.  And why not make it happen when we have children?  

Ethan would get the educational benefit of observing all the sea life {hello orcas and humpback whales!}, but can also have gobs of entertainment, via Nickelodeon, circus activities, pools, slides, sporting activities and more, all while on the cruise.  Sounds like a win-win to me!  The best part about the Norwegian experience, is that they really cater to families.  You can spend all day enjoying kid-friendly activities and then go out for that romantic dinner while the kiddos get to enjoy their own fun - supervised of course.

In looking more into Norwegian, they have activities and events outlined each day to really maximize the cruise experience, while keeping the kids constantly entertained.  I can only imagine how much more difficult it will become to keep Ethan happy as he gets older...he's already such a handful!  But these cruises are catered specifically to your kids needs.  They have full-time activity counselors who are there to provide a supervised and fun experience for all ages.  It's like summer camp, only better!  You can visit Norwegian's website for more details.

Now for the exciting part!  Norwegian Cruise Line and BlogHer are giving away one cruise voucher for a family of four and all you have to do to enter is tell me in the comments below:

What is your dream vacation for your family?

How easy is that?

Here are the official sweepstakes rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: "#SweepstakesEntry"; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

Entries from all participating blogs will be pooled for winner selection; only two entries per household.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 5/7/2013-6/2/2013.

Be sure to visit Norwegian Cruise Line's brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!

So what are you waiting for?  Tell me about your dream vacation and maybe you'll be taking that vacation before you know it!

Good Luck!

xo natasha