Just a note on Guidance... it doesn't really matter right now since we could have easily performed those actions consecutively, but it is a Concentration based spell, so only one instance of it can be active at any given time.
Yeah I basically had the same mindset, given we had 10 minutes to kill it could have been doled out as we looked things over.
And I guess we could all make note of our passive perception. It says it may come up if the dm doesn't want us to roll on detecting a monster or trap of some sort.
Meriene has a passive perception(wisdom) of 15.