Ok its part 2 time. What was previously discussed in part 1 was how to pick a natural style for your Disney Cruise vacation. I talked about picking a long lasting hair style so you won’t have to restyle your hair often. This will ensure your hair won’t be damaged from heavy manipulation. In part 2 I will discuss my second Disney Cruise hair style choices and why.

    After my fist Cruise on the Disney Dream I got engaged and when the question of where we would take our honeymoon came up a cruise seemed like a perfect idea. After saving all my tips for a year and my husband put aside money we were able to secure a spot. So, all the reservations and transportations were out of the way. So the next thing to plan was how would I wear my hair?

 After my first cruise I liked the turn out of the braids with my own hair, but for my honeymoon I wanted to feel flawless. Plus the amount of sun, heat, and chlorine from the last cruise had left my hair really dry. Factor in the fact that I had blown-out my hair to achieve the style and my hair started to feel a little damaged.

My hair usually spirals into little curls when it’s been left in braids or twist for a considerable amount of time. However; after the fist cruise it wouldn’t and I became concerned. One of the things I did wrong and I warned you about in part 1 is I didn’t use a heat protectant when I blew out my hair. That was a big no no. Then I didn’t feel like lugging my go to hair product with me on vacation so I left them at home. No no number 2. I didn’t moisturize my hair at all after I would leave the beach or the pool, so my hair just kinda dried out.

I learned from these mistakes and I was determined to take good care of my hair this time around. For the second cruise the beautician that did my hair for the wedding cut my hair shorter than I would have liked before the wedding and I couldn’t manipulate it at all to do any of my go to pinup tuck and roll styles. She also informed me after she cut my hair that she could not do the style we previously agreed on because my hair was too short. So to achieve the style I wanted for my wedding she had to add tracks AKA weave in my hair. I’m not against weave. I just didn’t picture that for my wedding day hair. Unfortunately I was backed into a corner because that was the style I wanted so I relented.

After I agreed to the weave it made me wonder once again what will I do with my hair for the honeymoon? Do I keep the curly (not my hair texture) weave in and keep the $250 hair style in my hair the whole honey moon, or do I go out on a limb and try something else?

My hair was too short to do braids on my own hair. I also didn’t want to risk damaging what hair I had left so I decided to put in jumbo kinky twist extensions myself.

Here is my reasoning behind choosing this style. I wanted long flowing hair, and I wanted to be able to bring only one small product to moisturize my scalp, and hair. Keeping my ends protected was a plus.

 What really sold me was being able to slap my hair into a pony tail or do a fishtail braided up-do at some of the more elegant restaurants on the ship. My hair was completely put away thus protected.

Now the only question was can I do my hair in time for my honeymoon? My honeymoon was 2 days after my wedding. We got married on a Saturday slept in on Sunday and I had till Tuesday 9 am before our plane left to install butt length kinky twist. So needless to say I was pressed for time.

What I did was plan ahead, and you can do this to if you ever convince yourself to do your hair with very little time. 1) I bought my hair early. I went to the beauty supply at the beginning of the month and got three bags of hair. 2) I bought my hair products early. I went to store all over finding the products I liked on sale a month in advanced. 3) I planed and plotted my free time out to a T. I asked my hubby if he was ok with me ignoring him a little Sunday afternoon so I could get an early start on my hair. I also planned for extra time INCASE something went wrong and I had to try something else. This came in handy when I ran out of hair Monday.  4) I packed my clothes 2 days before the wedding. I did this so all the packing stress would not get in the way. I didn’t want to make my time any shorter because then I might damage my hair trying to rush. When you are in a hurry and you need to detangle your hair, it’s possible you can be too rough and damaged your ends, or roots with pulling and yanking. We didn’t want that.

With everything planed and the wedding behind us I woke the day after my wedding with the task of cutting this weave out of my hair without getting my own hair. I was successful in record time and even managed to do a quick twist out so I still looked good when we left the hotel. When we arrived to our new house it was raining outside and inside out house so some of my time got taken up with moving our furniture and clothes and calling an emergency roofer. Strangely enough I planned for this too. I had seen strange holes in the ceiling and asked my mom/ landlord to check on it she refused and I noticed some of the furniture I had bought months ago was wet and water stained. She didn’t believe me till water was literally pouring down on me and my husband. I saw it coming and I checked the weather and I planned for it which is a strange thing to plan for, but I did.

After we got the bed and computer moved to dry land. I set up my stuff on the bed and gathered my felicity DVDs which somehow make me braid and twist faster.

I started at 5pm Sunday, and was done by 10pm Monday night.   I was finished by the end season 2 of Felicity. So I think I made pretty good time.

So my hair was finished and my trip was underway. To add a little glamour I rolled my twist with perm rods and dipped them in microwaved hot water. At the time we didn’t have a range and the only way to heat anything up was with the microwave.

The next morning before we left for our flight I took down the rollers and my twist was curly but still wet. If I had more time, they might have been dry. Also if I had access to a range the water would have been much hotter and my curls may have lasted longer.

Ironically our flight was delayed twice so we didn’t leave till 2 pm. If I had known and was not supper self-conches about it I could have kept my rollers in till we boarded. But I was not raised like that so that would have never gone down like that.

Actually I was a little peeved because I could have stayed home longer with the rollers in. So the lesson I learned from this, and I’m passing this down to you is. If you want to curl your extensions make sure you have enough time to let them dry.

So the twist worked out great. I was able to swim and play without having to restyle my hair twice a day. I think we went on the Aqua Duck 50 times, and it was nice not to be that black chick that’s scared to get her hair wet.

Did I mention Disney Cruise shampoo is awesome? I ran out of the tiny bottles of my Shea moistures that I brought and I ended up using the cruise lines shampoo. It didn’t strip my hair of moisture which I thought it would do. My hair stayed soft which was a surprise. If you don’t want to bring to much hair product with you this is a nice option, and if you prefer your own because of allergies, and certain preferences be sure to take an extra little regulation tiny bottle because you may end up washing your hair a lot. I was in the pool, Jacuzzi, and Aqua Duck at least 3 times a day being romantic with my hubby and I ran out of shampoo quickly.

I know what you are thinking. “Didn’t washing your hair so much strip it of moisture?”It probably did a little so that’s something to keep in mind. Also I let my hair air dry a lot and it started to smell mildewed by the end of the cruise. I covered it up with perfume, but that was spraying alcohol on my hair which could dry it out.

I never found a solution for the smell. The only thing I could have done was use the state room blow dryer but it didn’t have enough power to me, and again would have potentially damaged my hair without a heat protectant.

Another thing to consider if you go the extensions route is bring a lot of large hair ties. I made the mistake of only bringing 1 and it broke before we even boarded the ship in our hotel the night before debarkation. So I had to go to my hotel gift shop and buy a overpriced Minnie Mouse scrunchy that was big like the ones from the 80’s and 90’s and it did not have a lot of give. Don’t end up in this situation.

Not having to worry about my hair was the best part of this style and it made it the best choice for future vacations. When you are on vacation you want to be free and have fun not be that prissy girly girl that fusses over her hair throughout most of the trip.  So if you are going on a Disney Cruise or somewhere hot with a lot of water options extensions are the best way to go. Your hair is put away so you won’t mess with it potentially making it weak and unhealthy. Your ends are protected and if you clean it properly you won’t have to worry about mildew and scalp infections from bacteria buildup.

I hope you all have fun this vacation season and keep your hair health in mind when traveling.