2018: A Year of Firsts

Hi Friends!

It’s the second week of December and I’m sitting here going over all that has happened in 2018. SO MANY firsts. All thanks to you. Thank you to our Patrons and our private donators. Thank you to our fans, friends and family for your continued love and support. Thank you to everyone who watched, liked and shared our videos this year. We are humbled to have met so many amazing people and to have made so many friends across the globe. We are honored to call each and every one of you our friend. Wow. So many firsts.

It’s our mission to travel the world as much as possible. It’s our goal to travel full time. To be Travel Filmmakers. You help us chase our dream every single day and we’re forever grateful to you for it. THANK YOU! Here is our list of firsts for 2018:

First Official Cruise Vlog

Yep. It’s true. We made the decision to give cruise vlogging (travel documenting) a try. Our very first official cruise vlog would be in February of 2018 on the Norwegian Epic. We did have a daily vlog in 2017 but it wasn’t a travel vlog. We happened to go on a cruise during our daily vlogs and the response from it led to us creating our travel show.

First Zipline

I’ll remember our trip on the Norwegian Getaway forever. It was a defining moment in my weight loss. I dropped over 200+ pounds and was able to go on a zipline for the first time in over 20 years. It was (as Stef would say) AH-MAYZING. Truly a life changing moment and I’m grateful that we documented it.

First Time Parasailing

Because we can’t just do one life changing thing in a day, no, not how we roll. The same day we did the zipline, we went parasailing. Again, this was the first time I could do such an activity and I’ll never forget it.

First Ultimate Island Guide

Part of moving into a travel channel was listening to our fans. At this point in our journey the number 1 request was tours. Ship tours, Island Tours, etc. We decided to call our tours Ultimate Guides. This is our first Island Ultimate guide, the beautiful port of Harvest Caye.

First Transatlantic Cruise

Fun Fact: this was our only planned trip of 2018. Yep, every other cruise happened in the most random, most unique way. We LOVED cruising, thought 7 day cruises were too short and always wanted to see Europe. So, for Stef’s 40th birthday we left from Orlando and spent 15 days sailing to Barcelona, Spain. What a surreal adventure with many firsts of it’s own.

First Monkey Guided Tour

True story. Somewhere around the 22 minute mark, Stef and I get a personal tour of Gibraltar from a monkey. WHAT?

First Donation

March 2018. We received our first donation. It was anonymous. It was generous. Later that month it happened again.

Thank you William M., Gary T., Madeline M., David B., Allison L., Linda V. and Betty M. for your generous donations!!

First Time Sledding Down a City Street

We paid 2 dudes to pull us and then subsequently push us in a precarious wicker basket whilst whipping down an even more precarious road complete with open trenches. Yep. That happened. Additional firsts for us on this trip: Cable Cars. Why did it have to be cable cars? My fear of heights and innate distrust of engineering were put to their ultimate tests on this leg of our Transatlantic Trip. Yikes.

First Time on a Hop On Hop Off Bus

We’ve heard that these buses were the thing to do in Europe and thought there was no way we’d do it. Well, we did it. And it was awesome. Cadiz FTW.

First Ultimate Guide

Just like I mentioned above, over time the fans wanted tours. So we made them. We decided to call our tours Ultimate Guides and eventually this portion of the trip was dubbed ‘Ship Tour Day.’ This is our first official Ultimate Guide and it happened to be for the Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas.

First MSC Cruise

On our journey of firsts we find ourselves on the brand new MSC Seaside. We had never heard of MSC prior to this trip and we absolutely loved every second of it. Other firsts on this trip: Our first experience with the MSC Yacht Club, our first Zipline on a ship, our first F1 simulator on a ship, our first high tea on a ship, our first experience with wristbands for room keys and our first on board shooting simulator.

First Time Creating Glass

On our journey to do and see it all we found ourselves on the gorgeous Celebrity Equinox, making our own glass tumblers at Hollywood Hot Glass. Yes. Glass blowing at sea is a thing. Other firsts on this trip? Stefanie’s first and only time with blue hair. Also our first time getting amazing (MDR Quality) breakfast delivered to the cabin, every day.

First Time Driving an ATV Around an Island

That’s right. We visited St. Maarten and explored the entire island on ATVs. It was everything it could have been and more, it was the best day ever.

First Carnival Cruise

We honestly thought it would never happen. All of the stories. All of the rumors. All of the drama. We just sort of purged it from our brains. After several debates in our FB group and long talks with each other, we somehow ended up on the new Carnival Horizon and we’re totally glad we did it. We had so much fun we ended up booking another trip on a Carnival ship, the Carnival Breeze, right away. If you want your opinion of Carnival changed, watch this series.

First Time Sailing Out of NYC & Back into NYC

There are some ports that are so memorable it’s worth standing on the top deck leaning against a railing for almost 90 minutes. We did that twice. Once on the way out, another on the way back in. I don’t know what’s cooler sailing past the Statue of Liberty, One World Trade Center, Manhattan and the rest of the gorgeous NYC Skyline or sailing under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. Sailing in and out of this port is an experience like no other.

First Time Having Art for Dessert

That’s right. After an amazing day in Amber Cove, we had dinner at the world famous Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse. Dessert was created, by hand, right in front of us. It was part art installation part best dessert ever. You’ll just have to watch and see for yourself.

First Time Driving Around an Island on a Golf Cart

You really can’t make these things up. Our first visit to Grand Turk and we explored the island on a Golf Cart. The cart maxed out at 3mph, it was an experience.

First Patron

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The first time someone told us Hey, we like your show, here’s a few bucks. We’re still in shock that this is a reality for us. THANK YOU to our first ever Patron, Jake B!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to all of our Patrons for supporting us!

THANK YOU:

Amanda F., Collin K., Corinne H., David O., Edward N., Fred F., Jake B., Jason M., Jeffery H., Justin A., Lisa I., Lisa M., Madeline M., Melissa S., Merritt H., Michelle M., Tina M., Toni H.

See our Patreon page here:

https://www.patreon.com/seanandstefirl

First Fathom Excursion

This was our first experience with Fathom Travel and Carnival Cruises. It was magic. It was life changing. All we want to do is more. Impact Travel has changed us forever. Chocal is a chocolate factory run by 22 amazing women who wanted to earn an income without having to leave their families for days or weeks to look for work. We helped with every aspect of the chocolate making process, from planting and harvesting to processing and packaging, we did it all and it was awesome.

First Halloween Cruise

We don’t typically do holiday cruises, but this year has been anything but typical. I dressed up in costume for the first time ever, sea or other. It was a fantastic event with cool parties and even cooler costumes. Other firsts on this trip: our first journey to Fortaleza Street in San Juan to see the amazing umbrella art installation.

First Princess Cruise

On the list for as long as we can remember, Princess Cruises was one of those lines that kept slipping through the cracks. The Royal Princess was not on our list for 2018. This ship is special for so many reasons. It was our first Princess Cruise, our First Fathom Cruise AND Our First Sponsored Cruise. We loved every second of our trip on the Royal Princess and think Princess has some of the kindest crew at sea.

First Sponsored Cruise

On October 18th, 2018 I wrote a blog post asking the internet for help. We had just found out that a Fathom cruise was happening on the Royal Princess and it absolutely was not in our budget for the year. We simply could not make it happen. Our phenomenal FB family shared the article and an amazing woman named Brittany Watson contacted us. She said she wanted to put us on the ship and on the Fathom excursions. We were shocked. Truly walked around the office in awe for days. Thank you THANK YOU to Brittany and her company Your Perfect Getaway by Brittany Watson for being our first series sponsor!

Watch our Cruise on the Royal Princess, sponsored by Your Perfect Getaway by Brittany Watson here: https://seanandstefirl.blog/category/cruise-vlogs/princess-cruises/royal-princess/

First Fathom Cruise

Like I said above, thanks to Brittany, we had the ability to do amazing things on our Royal Princess cruise including Creating Instruments for Children, Planting Trees, Creating Recycled Paper, Cleaning Community Gardens and help rebuild museum grounds after hurricane destruction. It was the best cruise of our lives. Go to Fathom.org to see more about Fathom and the amazing things they do around the world.

First Viewer Funded Cruise

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Along the lines of this wasn’t planned, we didn’t have the budget, etc. etc. Our last cruise of the year is also a first. It’s our first viewer funded cruise. YEP! Thank you to our amazing monthly Patrons and our generous GoFundMe donators along with our awesome fans for watching and sharing (That helps more than you know!) our show! All thanks to your support we are sailing on the Norwegian Bliss and it’s 100% viewer funded. We’re again just kind of sitting here in awe of what’s happening.

Stefanie and I are humbled and honored to be on this journey with you. THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts! We can’t wait to experience the Bliss and even more excited to see what 2019 has up it’s sleeves.

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