Grand Vacation 2014: Cruising with Stampin’ Up!

Published by under Incentive Trip | Jun 02 2014

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It still feels like a dream that only last month we were cruising in the Caribbean, visiting exotic destinations and hanging out with Stampin’ Up! friends from around the world. We’ve been so busy since then that it kinda feels like months ago!

Thank heavens for photos that allow us to relive these incredible experiences.

I invite you to come along for the ride via this snippet of the AMAZING trip to Florida and the Caribbean cruise. A huge and heartfelt thanks to Stampin’ Up! for giving Jason and I this incredible experience and of course my wonderful customers and team who I absolutely adore.

I really did intend to keep this post short, as we’ve got so much going on that I can’t wait to share with you (including an awesome new JOIN FOR $85 special!), but… well… as you can see there are lots of photos… so you might want to grab a cuppa.

Grand Vacation bag tags

It always feels more real when the bag tags arrive in the mail.

MiamiWe added a couple of extra days at the start of the trip to help deal with jetlag.  Miami was awesome and we sure crammed a lot into those two days! Yep, being tourists.

We then spent a couple of days in Fort Lauderdale including a day out at a huge outlet mall where we bumped into a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator from Germany – hello Maxie!. We saw Maxie most days on the ship so it was a lot of fun chatting and getting to know her on the bus ride.

Embarkation day arrived. I even managed to be up at 5am to see the amazing Allure of the Seas arrive in port.

Wow. I knew she was the biggest cruise liner in the world – but I was still blown away by her sheer size. You can fit 3 times as many people on this ship as the population of my home town!

Hmmm, that was a little mind-boggling.

SailAway

One of the fun things on every Incentive Trip (aka Grand Vacation) is the Hospitality Suite provided by Stampin’ Up!. It’s a meeting area where we can catch up with other demonstrators, learn a little about the activities on offer, and try our hand at games to win free products. This year it was a Ring Toss game. And I must say I got pretty good at it by the end of the trip (shhh – yes, I was standing RIGHT OVER the bottles but hey, it counts. Doesn’t it?).

HospitalitySuite

We’ve been very blessed to have earned five Stampin’ Up! incentive trips over the past five years, and I have to say this was one of the most relaxed trips ever. There were just a couple of group functions – social events really – and the rest was purely free time. On the first night we booked out the entire Boardwalk area and had a meet & greet, followed by a private showing of the amazing OceanAria acrobatics-over-water show. We even had a group photo which was an impressive effort as our group was over 700 people in size – that’s demonstrators, their partners and other guests.

Later in the cruise we joined in a Walk-a-thon to raise money to build homes in Haiti. We also had a get-together for South Pacific demonstrators and staff, so it was fun to say g’day to the other Aussies and Kiwis on board.

GroupEvents

We also had an inspirational Share Affair afternoon, which I’ll chat about in a separate post.

Our ship docked at 3 ports during the week: Labadee, which is a little portion of private land on Haiti; Falmouth (and we went to Montego Bay) in Jamaica; and Cozumel which is an island off the coast of Mexico. It was fun seeing a different part of the world, a long way from our small country town in Australia.

ports

One of the very special treats on a Stampin’ Up! incentive trip is the pillow gifts. These are fun gifts that ‘magically’ appear in our rooms when we return in the evening.We are always so touched at the thoughtfulness that goes into these treats, and this year was no exception.

Gifts included logo drink bottles, his & hers luxurious lounge covers embroidered with the words ‘Stampin’ Up!’,  snacks and lollies, on board credit, his & hers jackets, a handbag and new Stampin’ Up! products from our yet-to-be-released catalogue.

pillowgifts

Alright, hopefully you’re still with me. I’ll finish off this long post with some other random shots that make me smile. Beautiful scenery, new friends, fun and laughter.

FunPhotos

Thanks again for all your support over the years.  I look forward to serving you and hopefully inspiring you a little more over the coming years. Due to family commitments in May 2015 it may not be possible for us to attend the next Stampin’ Up! trip, even if we qualify, but you never know what lies ahead. One thing I do know is that we have a beautiful catalogue to look forward to, lots of crafts to make, and memories to make and record.  Bring it on!

Don’t forget to stop and say hello – just click on the ‘comment’ link below.

Happy stamping,

Simone Bartrum, Stampin' Up! demonstrator Australia, Victoria

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  • This is me! Simone Bartrum, Australian Stampin' Up! demonstrator since 2007.
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