Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for meeeeee…

I gleefully sang this song multiple times throughout my short Disney cruise getaway earlier this month. I love cruises. I love Disney. I love tropical islands. So I got to combine my love for all three by embarking on a cruise to the Bahamas with my boyfriend that was planned sort of last minute, but desperately needed nonetheless.

I’m so glad we went, even if it did involve a helluva ton of preparation time. Because as you’ve probably figured it out by now, traveling with diabetes requires extra work. But traveling with diabetes knowing that you’ll be stranded in the middle of the ocean for part of the time necessitates apocalypse-level planning.

There was a whole list of questions I needed to answer as I packed my bags for the trip. How many pods should I bring with me? How much insulin? How would I keep said insulin cool? What types of snacks should I have on hand? Should I bother bringing Glucagon? What about chargers for all of my devices?

The answer to most of those questions was…just bring more supplies than I think I’ll need. For instance, I brought triple the number of pods than I’d actually go through over the course of a four-night trip. I packed extra snacks – a few unopened boxes of granola bars and a whole bottle of glucose tablets. I don’t even know how many alcohol swabs or spare syringes I brought, that’s how many I crammed in my luggage. And I deemed that two bottles of Humalog, plus Glucagon, would be ample (after all, I’d rather have it all and not need it than need something random and not have it).

I ended up purchasing a cooling case on Amazon that would allegedly keep my insulin cool during the day trips we’d make to the islands. I say “allegedly” because it wound up not being that great (otherwise, I’d add a link here to purchase it). After a day on Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay, in which the cooling case never left the shade of our umbrella, I returned to our state room to discover the contents of the case were a bit warmer than I had expected. Disappointing, but the insulin still seemed safe to use.

In terms of meals and snacks on the boat, there was a plethora of foods to choose from. Oh, and virtual 24/7 access to a soft-serve ice cream machine. Aaaaand a lot of tempting tropical libations. I tried to stick to healthy options and incorporate vegetables or proteins at each meal, and of course I drank plenty of water, but it was vacation and I couldn’t resist a Mickey waffle at breakfast each morning or the occasional mojito-filled coconut. So it’s not totally surprising that on average, I ran a bit higher than I’d normally like for the whole cruise, but I don’t regret it because it’s really hard to judge how much insulin to take or food to consume when the days are jam-packed with physical activities and sun exposure. And I accomplished my goal of avoiding low blood sugars as much as I could, because I absolutely did not want to be stranded on the sand treating a low when I could’ve been swimming in the most gloriously warm turquoise waters with sea creatures.

Even though my diet wasn’t the healthiest, I was able to combat some of those choices with a lot of movement during the cruise. Between strolling the walking track that was on deck three of the ship, bicycling on Castaway Cay, snorkeling/swimming at the beach, and walking ALL OVER both land and ship to get wherever I wanted to go, I clocked some seriously miles on this vacation. Who would’ve thought that being on a boat would lead to so much exercise getting automatically incorporated into my day?

So sure, going on a cruise vacation does add an extra layer of stress to trip preparation. But trust me when I say it’s worth it. I was blissfully happy during the whole cruise and, even though I didn’t need more than half the supplies I brought with me, I enjoyed the peace of mind it resulted in because I’d taken the time to think things through. It just goes to show that diabetes can’t prevent the enjoyment of any type of travel.