We were so looking forward to our first cruise as a family. We decided to go with an Oasis class ship on Royal Caribbean just because of everything that it offers. We were also super excited because this was our first ever time sailing in suite!
Hurricane Nicole hit right around when it was time for our cruise. Originally, we were flying into Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, but because of the hurricane we decided to change our plans to flying in on Wednesday to try to beat the storm in so that we made sure we were in Florida for our cruise. First we switched into flying into Orlando but then the trajectory of the storm changed and moved into Orlando, so we scrambled last minute to find a Miami flight. We got the first 6am flight out and Kayla slept the whole way which was really nice.
We were packed down with stuff that we were carrying, and of course Kayla didn't want to be in the stroller that I was pushing... she wanted daddy to carry her. So I had her suitcase and stroller and I'm struggling pushing it, and poor Cody was struggling with her car seat and some of our other luggage. I don't know how people with multiple kids manage it!? Because with just one kid, we were already quite the sight going through the Miami airport, and it takes quite a while to get to the rental car area there too.
We are Explorist status with Hyatt, so we went to check into our hotel room at 10:30am and to our delight they had a room ready for us! Woohoo for being up a status. That allowed us to set our stuff down at the hotel, and then head to Miller Alehouse for lunch.
We love their zingers! Yum!! Kayla's being silly in this picture.
After lunch we went to Walmart for some snacks for the night, and a birthday cake for me! Kayla was sooo cute all day saying "Happy birthday mommy!"
We ordered dominos for dinner for the night and hung out in room as the storm was going. Luckily, most of the storm hit about 2-3 hours north of us so it was only heavy rain in Miami by us. It kept us in all day, but overall not too bad for a hurricane touching down in the state we were in.
Because we changed our plans and came into Florida one day early that meant that I was one day short on vacation, so I had to work two half days in the morning on Thursday and Friday. After I was done working we went to Bayside Park in Miami. We went to lunch at Margittaville, and right after we ordered our lunch Kayla and I went into the bathroom. The had a large family style bathroom, and Kayla (as a fresh potty trainer) is nervous about going in "big potties" for some reason she feels like smaller stalls means small potties. So she wanted to find a different potty. So we walked out and I looked down the hall to see if there were any different bathrooms, and to my horror I turn around to see her screaming and trying to pull her hand out of the door. She somehow went to the door jam and got her finger stuck in it.
Poor baby, really got her middle finger pinched bad. I was worried that she lost a finger for minute. She was guarding it and not letting me look at it at first. And after that happened, she was inconsolable. Her finger hurt and she was upset the rest of our time in Miami. Cody was fuming mad at me that it happened and nothing that we tried (playground, ice cream, present) made her feel any better. We got back to our hotel room and realized that her medical bag got left at home, so we had to run out and get band aids, ointment, and baby Tylenol. After the Tylenol, she started to feel a little bit better and we went to Miller's Alehouse for dinner, but it was a rough day. I was really worried that it was going to ruin her whole cruise too.
But the next day, we made our way to our hotel in Fort Lauderdale and they had a pool and Kayla had a lot of fun in the pool. It didn't seem like her finger was bothering her that much (we did keep a band aid on it, and kept her regularly on Tylenol).
Even though the pool was a little on cooler side, she still had fun swimming in it with daddy.
She was playing and walking around on the steps a lot.
She loved it when daddy played motor boat with her.
Our hotel was right in Dania Point which is very similar to Crocker Park. We walked around a bit there and ended up eating at Ocean One. They had 3 for $11 drinks which really wasn't bad. However, their service there was super slow... it felt like they were there forever.
Every 2nd and 4th Friday they have a night market with vendors and entertainment. We walked around a bit and listened to the performers.
Then a group came with light up hula hoops and Kayla really liked them.
There was a girl dressed up in a diamond bunny costume and it was Kayla's absolute favorite. She kept watching where the bunny was and she went up to her for a high five and a picture.
This group also had hula hoops that they passed out to the kids. During their first round, Kayla didn't get a hula hoop and desperately wanted one. When they left, she even had us chase them down the sidewalk to try to see them, but we lost them. Luckily they came back every hour to relieve the other performer for their break. When they came back a second time, I helped get her a hula hoop, but she ended up being scared and not playing with it. We ended up getting ice cream and Haas Das and sat their sharing it and watching.
Next morning was cruise boarding day!! We got to the port at 10:30am, and because we had Kayla they put us in some express walk through area. We got into the waiting area within minutes. We sat in the terminal for about an hour and boarded the ship around 11:30am. The only thing that I don't like about Royal Caribbean is that you can't book all of our reservations ahead of time. You have to wait until you get there to see the entertainment line up, and then make your reservations. Luckily, being in a suite, we had the suite concierges who made a lot of our lunch and dinner reservations for us, but it was still very frustrating. They also book dinner for 4 hour blocks and don't let you book show reservations in that block. Luckily, our suite concierges were able to fix that for us.. but without the benefit of having them, I would have been really disappointed in Royal. I really didn't like having to sit down and plan out our week right as we got on the ship instead of getting to enjoy the ship right away.
However, once we got it all sorted out, we went to the boardwalk and Kayla lit up when she saw the carousel and she wanted on it right away. Cody went to Sabor to get a Margitta.
She loved the carousel and was so excited for it. She kept waving and smiling. The ride attendant thought she was so cute.
Waving to daddy.
Here is Kayla on the stairs.
We ate lunch at Johnny Rockets and get got burgers and milk shakes.
Here they are doing their Johnny Rocket dance.
Our room was ready just before 2pm, and we went right there to check out our room. We were on the 17th floor in a Crown Loft Suite. It was a two story room, which a living room down below and a room upstairs.
Here's a view of the room. Kayla liked playing on the stairs.
Our room was right up above.
Living room area.
One of our two bathrooms. It was nice to have a tub with Kayla.
More of the upstairs bathroom.
Downstairs bathroom with a shower.
Here are Cody and Kayla on our balcony. Her most common phrase the first couple days of our cruise is 'Why us moving?" and she'd say it over and over.
Looking down from our balcony. This was the perfect balcony. You could see the ocean, but you could also see people too. This is the first time that people could look back at us on our balcony. The one day Kayla ran out naked and people pointed and laughed at her! Ah!! I really enjoyed this view though and wouldn't mind something similar in the future.
Kayla looking down from our room. After checking out our room, we ran to get in line for Adventure Ocean right when they opened to register Kayla and book our 10 hours that they let us book ahead of time. I was trying to be really strategic about how to use our hours, and hoped that later in the cruise we would be able to pick up more hours.
That night we went to dinner at Chops.
Kayla liked playing with the "baby knives" aka the butter knives there. She had a good time putting butter all over her rolls.
Our waiter on our first night was probably the best waiter we had all trip, he was soooo good to Kayla. He brought her a special plate with mashed potatoes, fries, and mac & cheese. Which was absolutely perfect for her. At the end of the night, she was all buttery and messy and he offered to bring a bowl of warm water and a new towel so that I could clean her up easier. It was so nice.
Our dinner at Chops was fantastic! They had giant jumbo shrimp which tasted great.
Their crab cakes were really good.
They also had pretty good steaks, but I made a mistake the first night or two. Cody ordered the regular steak, and I ordered the petite 6 ounce one. We wanted our steaks cooked the same way, but it was like they couldn't get it right with the smaller steak. Cody's always came out perfect, but mine was always a little too rare for my liking (but still good).
Kayla got a giant bowl of ice cream for dessert.
As you can see, she was digging it!
Cody enjoying dinner.
After dinner, we hurried up to try to make early Aquashow. Kayla and I had been watching different parts of the Aquashow for about a month or so before our trip every night before bed to prep her for the show. She was definitely nervous at first, but then ended up LOVING the Aquashow. We watched it every night that it was on, and sometimes again from our balcony. She loved loved loved it. And even over a month after our trip, she still asks me to watch it before bed time.
Kayla twirling in the hallway.
Happy baby!
This is the Aquashow from our room. We were going to go to the welcome aboard Comedy Show, but Kayla was very tired. So we came back to our room to unpack and relax for a bit. Kayla went right to bed, and then I went out on our balcony and watched the end of the Aquashow again.
That night, Kayla woke up every sleep cycle all night long. We're in a weird spot, where she's too big for a pack and play, but not quite ready to sleep on a couch or cot yet. We went to Coastal Kitchen for breakfast, but it was super slow and they had the same breakfast items as the buffet. That was the last day that we went there for breakfast. We were going to go to the pool for the day, but it downpoured and that scared Kayla. We ate lunch at Izumi (yum!) and then Kayla and I went to Adventure Ocean. They didn't have a lot of toys/accessories in Adventure Ocean but we made believe together and had fun.
They had cups and a little machine that we pretended was an ice cream machine that Kayla enjoyed playing with, and we had fun together for about 2 hours. Cody was off on his own at the suite lounge/pools/watching the cowboys game. So we had some girls time.
After playing in Adventure Ocean, we got an ice cream cone and then went to play putt putt. Kayla really enjoyed playing around with the putt putt.
She was thrilled when she got the ball into the hole.
Then we went off to ride the carousel for a bit and see the Aquashow again.
Kayla was nervous at first again, but she was really excited that the aerialist's name was Ana (which is her best friends name). After she found out that was her name, that was the only performer that she had eyes for. Wherever that girl was, Kayla knew it.
Here we are waiting the Aquashow.
These guys were my favorite. They were on a tight rope and did all kinds of flips and tricks in sync with each other. It was really neat!
Ana waving to us fangirling her after the show.
Our room steward arrived our towel animal with her babies.
We to Jamie's Italian for dinner and they had the absolute best bread ever! It was delicious and we all loved it. You have to order it as a side, it doesn't just come to your table. Afterwards, we dropped Kayla off at the night time daycare for the first time and went to see Grease the Musical. It was really well done and we enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a few minutes before we had to pick Kayla up at midnight, so we went to boots and bonnet for a few drinks/songs. It was nice to get a few hours together. Daycare said that Kayla was kind grumpy/didn't want to get out of her stroller, but we dropped her off late and she was already tired.
The next morning, I grabbed food at the Windjammer and it was a great selection, quick and easy. They also had a hand washing station before you walked in that I appreciated. After eating, we made our way out to Labadee, Haiti. I really enjoy the private islands that the cruise ships have.
Family shot with the ship in the background.
Our experience on the private island was very different from our last, because we were able to go to the suite exclusive area, Barefoot Beach. We had plenty of chairs and a nice private beach area.
They gave us fresh towels as we walked in and we had a nice spot in the shade. Right as we got onto the island, I realized that I forgot Kayla's beach toys, so poor Cody ran back to get it.
Kayla loved playing in the hammocks.
Wee!! Happy girl!
Hammocks are so much fun.
Yay! Daddy was the hero and Kayla had fun sand toys to play with.
We had fun burying her toys and having her find and dig them up.
She had to find the X that marked the spot to know where to dig.
Here's our playing setup.
The man next to us found a hermit crab that he showed us.
Here is our lunch area. I love that drinks and food are included on the island. It makes it so nice. We noticed that a couple of our waiters from the previous nights were working/serving us on Labadee.
Cheers!
Barefoot Beach water area.
We had an enjoyable time on barefoot beach, but I was kind of watching the clock because at 3pm Adventure Ocean "opened up" all of their hours for you to book as many as you wanted. So I was ready to run up there and book the rest of our "wish list" daycare hours. I was actually the only one there waiting in line and I got all of the hours that we wanted. Afterwards, we just stayed on the ship and swam for a couple of hours. Most people were off the ship, so we were in the pools, kiddie area, and hot tub and had it mostly to ourselves. But even on sea days, it's not bad because of all the pool options Royal has. We love it. Also, I found that frozen blue Hawaiians are my drink of choice on cruise ships. They are sooo yummy. I tried LOTS of drinks on this cruise. I had a whole list of different things to try, and I really didn't find anything I liked better than the blue hawaiian. I'm definitely a Malibu drinker.
Posing in Central Park.
Running around.
Family picture.
Momma and baby!
We ate dinner at 150 Central Park. Of all the places, I think it was my least favorite place. It wasn't bad, but it didn't wow me.
Daddy and his girl.
We were on a duck hunt. Someone had posted that a duck was hidden in these glasses earlier, but we were too late to find it.
After dinner, we dropped Kayla off at daycare and went to see 1887: A journey in time ice skating show.
There were a couple guys in drag that were the comedic relief throughout the show.
Here's a better picture of them.
There was a guy in a ring and that was doing flips and rolls all around the ice ring.
I thought he was the best part of the show. But honestly, it overall wasn't that great. I was pretty sleepy during it, and we were really glad that we dropped Kayla off at daycare because I don't think she would have been able to sit through it.
Afterwards, we went to the bionic bar, where robots make the drinks. It's really cool, they have a whole menu where it shows you exactly what is in the drink. It was really cool because you could decide on new drinks to try. It also let you make all kinds of customizable drinks. We really liked the bionic bar and went there quite a bit. We went up to Schnooner Bar for a few minutes, and I saw two guys with a couple of ducks. We had been trying to duck hunt for a few days with no success. This is the newest rage with cruises. People get little plastic ducks and hide them for people to find, and Kayla really wanted to find one. Anyway, I saw two guys with two ducks, and they "hid" one under a table tent. I saw them get up and leave and I jumped up and grabbed it. I was totally planning on planting it for Kayla tomorrow. I showed Cody and told him look what I found, and the guy turned around and was like, "Oh I almost forgot my duck! Thanks!" And I was like.... Ummm... and he's like "Oh did you want it?" And I was like yeah... my toddler would really like it. And he's like ok that's fine, I found a few others too. But oh boy! I was gonna fight that guy for that duck! My poor baby had been searching everywhere for one.
Here's Kayla and I hanging out on our balcony. I loved sitting out here and relaxing. I would write in my notepad with my notes for the day and Kayla would say that I'm doing my homework.
My girl and I! Whenever she acted up and yelled/threw a tantrum I'd tell her that she wasn't allowed to do that on a cruise ship and that one of the men in the white shirts (the crew where's long white sleeve shirts, but any guy wearing white worked) were coming to come over and we were going to get in trouble. It instantly worked to get her to stop throwing a tantrum. She just wasn't allowed to do it on a ship... and for some reason she accepted that as a true statement. This kind of convinced me to do Elf on a shelf this year too (which she absolutely loved).
We decided to check out the suite lounge, and it was really windy!
The area was nice though, and the view was good.
They had really comfortable chairs and towels in there, but no pool. So we didn't end up spending a whole lot of time in there.
On our way to lunch at Chops, I planted the duck for Kayla to find. Look how happy that little girl is!!
As we were walking, a family came in and were hiding ducks in the Central Park area where we were, so Kayla ACTUALLY got to find a couple ducks herself.
My little duck hunter.
She was so excited! I only let her keep a few though so that other people could find them. But some people on our cruise facebook group posted pictures with a dozen ducks (crazy & selfish in my opinion).
Here is Kayla's haul of what I let her keep.
Playing with our ducks.
We went to lunch at Chops and Kayla got a yummy platter of food again.
My girl and I!
Giving mommy a snuggle.
Playing with daddy before going on the carousel.
Looking at the sunset on our balcony, and enjoying watching the group practice for the Aquashow.
Happy girls!
All of us.
We ended up dropping Kayla off at daycare from 2pm - 4pm and we went around to the pools and hot tubs together. It was nice to get to have some time to ourselves and chat with people around us. We were going to take Kayla for an hour or so too, but it was windy and it made her nervous, so we got an ice cream cone instead and hung out on balcony some more.
Kayla looooved hanging out on our balcony. I loved that our chairs are padded and extra comfy. I also really loved our view.
We tried to have dinner at Sabor this night, but it is right next to the Aqua Show, and when Kayla realized that the Aqua show was coming on she started freaking out that she wanted to go see it. So I had to scarf down my food and run over. Cody stayed to settle everything up and get our dessert. He brought me churros while Kayla and I sat off to the side and watch the show. Overall, we only thought Sabor was ok. We actually changed our reservations to do Jamie's an extra time instead of coming here again.
Ana, her favorite.
Afterwards, we all went to see the World Champion Juggler/Comedian. He was definitely funny, but for being the world champion juggler, I wasn't overly impressed with his juggling. I kind of expected more from him, but it was still an alright show. His comedy made it worth going.
Afterwards, we took our little night owl to Boots and Bonnet to listen to a few songs before we went back to our room for the night.
She got a kitty cat. Meow!
The morning pickleball games.
After eating at the windjammer for breakfast (which I did nearly every day), we went to play at Adventure Ocean for a while.
Playing pretend before going to grab a quick lunch at the windjammer before our tour in Aruba.
We booked through Royal Caribbean, but we were booked with a 3rd party company, De Palm Tours, that was not organized at all. They really lacked in telling you where to go with the excursion. Nearly everyone was confused and not sure where to go.
We ended up getting on the bus and sitting in the very back. We had a good tour guide that gave lots of details over our 4 hour trip. We went to rock formations, natural bridge ruins, light house, and Eagle Beach. It was basically a tease of Aruba, and to be honest I didn't love the stops that we did during our tour. I'd definitely like to get to go there for a week sometime, and get to experience the resort area.
Here we are the the "big" rock formations. We decided to climb to the top, because why not??
Photo Op!
Family photo op in Aruba.
Of course on our way walking down, I tripped and nearly fell down. I twisted my ankle a little bit but not too major. It could have been worse... I almost bit the dust.
Here's the walk down, I was at the top when I tripped. And people around me gasped. I must have grabbed the hand rail or something to keep from going down.
Picture of the rock formation we climbed.
This is a picture of the natural bridge area that collapsed.
It was hard to tell where it was exactly, but I believe this is it.
More photo op time.
Family pictures.
Daddy and his girl.
Momma and her baby.
We were building rock pyramids because apparently if you build rocks up in a stack it grants you a wish. You're supposed to do it 7 stones high.
Kayla fell asleep during our bus ride so we skipped walking out to the lighthouse and hung out in the bus.
Cody snapped a picture of it for me though for my blog.
Here we are at Eagle Beach.
Playing in the sand.
Tonight we dropped Kayla off at daycare again. Here we are in the suite lounge. The two servers, Rico and Sun, knew us and came over and brought Kayla a cup of cherries. She loved her cherries. My drink of choice in here was a Curacao Cosmo.
This night was probably our best night of the cruise. We went to Izumi for dinner, and it was the best hibachi that we've had in a long time. I got lobster and shrimp and Cody got lobster and filet.
Our cook was excellent. He was super funny and good at his job. And they gave tastes of everything to everyone. The only issue was they forgot to cook my lobster! When he first came around he confirmed everyone's meal and I told him that I had shrimp and lobster but he must have forgot or something... but it was no big deal. He was funny about it, and I'd had a few drinks and was a little tipsy (those Curacao comsos are strong) so I didn't mind.
Afterwards we went to Wonderland for Drinks and desserts. We had read that they had really fun atmosphere and interesting drinks/desserts. There whole premise is that things aren't as they seem.
This the Cheshire Cat cosmo. It has cotton candy in it and they pour the drink over top of it and it disappears.
There it goes...
Almost disappeared...
Haha!! I was a little tipsy for sure.
Cody thought I was so funny that he took a picture of me.
Here is the menu. At first it is blank, but you have to dip your paint brush into the "magic solution" to reveal the menu. They say you have to be adventurous and ready to explore to eat here. Things look one way (like clear soup that is actually tomato soup). You just pick from categories and they bring you a sampling of different things. We had already eaten dinner so we didn't actually eat the dinner food here.
We got "The World" dessert. It is a big dark chocolate ball that they pour hot caramel sauce over.
The caramel melts the chocolate ball to reveal ice cream and a peanut butter on the inside. I'm not usually a big dark chocolate fan, but this was sweet and good enough that I really enjoyed it.
After our drinks and dessert at Wonderland, we went to the Bionic Bar to grab a drink. I can't remember what it was called, but a drink that I can't remember the name of... it was something star. It had vanilla vodka, apple pucker, and cranberry juice. It was really good.
We went to the comedy show tonight. The first woman, Nora wasn't all that great. She had aging woman humor that I didn't fully appreciate, but the second guy was hilarious! We were cracking up at him.
Afterwards, we ran into a disco party happening in the promenade.
They were throwing these light up rings to people and I really wanted one. The one girl shimmed and pointed to me... so I shimmed back.. and she laughed at me and threw it to me. I got it, and some other woman said that I should give it to her for her friend. And I was like... ummm... sorry, I shimmied for this, and it's going to my baby tomorrow.
I really enjoyed the disco show! It was a lot of fun. Afterwards we went to the pub to listen to live music. My only complaint is that they don't have a "Howl at the moon" type of venue. I really enjoyed that place. I liked the snarkiness and back and forth with the singers. On Royal, they just have one person performing requests... which is ok... it's just not an experience that Howl at the Moon was.
This is the beautiful picture Kayla made at daycare!
The next day, our ship was in port at Curacoa but we decided to have a "ship" day. We love days on the ship when it's in port because we basically have it all to ourselves. First we dropped Kayla off at daycare from 10:30am - 1:30pm. Then we went to the spa to get our couples massage. I was getting pretty ticked because the masseuses were late getting to us, and I didn't like missing out on our time.
Here is the room we sat in. The massages themselves were nice. You can't complain about getting a nice massage. Afterwards, we had about an hour left before we had to pick up Kayla so we ran to the hot tub area and talked with some people and I tried a bunch of drinks on my "try a new drink check list" and honestly... I barely liked any of the drinks that I tried! I'm definitely a malibu girl. I tried a mudslide which is really popular but I thought it tasted like dirt. Cody LOVED it, and it was pool drink of choice from there on out. He probably had about half a dozen of them while we were there.
After we had some time to ourselves, we went and grabbed Kayla and played with her in the pools for a few hours. We got Sorrentos pizza for lunch and hung out in our room for a few hours. We really enjoyed the cruise, because it was good alone time for Cody and I, but it was also good family time with Kayla. We got to spend quality time with her, but then had endless possibilities of activities Cody and I could do together too.
We dropped Kayla back off at daycare for the night, and went to Chops for dinner (definitely our favorite) and then we went to Columbus the Musical for our nightly show. I honestly, wasn't that impressed. It was about Columbus's cousin, Marvin... and it was pretty stupid honestly. They did sing popular songs throughout which made it ok, but I didn't love it. Afterwards, we went to the casino for an hour or two... and I actually did pretty good there for once!
By day 7, our baby girl owned this ship. She was leading us and having us take her where she wanted to go.
Leading the way to the carousel.
Happy girl waving to mama.
At this point, we've had such a good time on this cruise that we decided it was time to book another one! So we went to Next Cruise, so that we could get the extra on board credit for putting a deposit down to book with them again. And the guy that was helping us gave Kayla a duck.
While we were waiting, they had a year parade go by... where they had floats of all the different holidays/special events throughout the year.
Next we were back to Chops for these delicious shrimp.
I decided to change it up and get their chicken. This will be my future lunch decision at Chops because it was AMAZING. It was sooo good!
After lunch, we popped Kayla over to daycare for a few hours so that Cody and I could swim/go in the hot tubs together a bit. And then we went up to the suite lounge and laid down on their extremely comfortable daybeds. There was a nice breeze and it was so comfortably padded. I was in heaven laying there and taking a nice little nap. Cody went and got Kayla when it was time to get her and she came and hung out with us up there for a bit too.
Tonight was the second formal night, so we all got dressed up. This is one of my favorite pictures from the cruise.
Running around Central Park.
Kayla and daddy.
Me and my silly goose.
I like this family picture too.
More photo ops.
Here we are at dinner at Jamie's Italian. I didn't think that I was going to like this place, but boy was I wrong. Their food was great.
My cute sweet baby girl! Love this girl to pieces.
On our way to the Aquashow we stopped to get a picture in front of the carousel.
Tonight was a new Aquashow, call Big Daddy's Hideaway Heist. It was more of a funny show then the previous show we had been seeing. It had a plot and actually a bit more diving than the other show. It was definitely less serious than the other show and Kayla loved it.
While we were waiting for the show to start, there was a guy that was dressed pretty well on all fours searching the stands. They had security and a bunch of people looking around our suite area. Turns out that the guys wife had lost the diamond to her ring... her 6 carat diamond ring!!
We went to the bionic bar to get a drink made, and we had Kayla a hawaiian punch made with all kinds of different juices (it was pretty good). And she was THRILLED that it was making a drink for her. She was jumping up and down and squealing. She was so excited.
We went over to Boot and Bonnets to listen to some music. Kayla made it to about 10:40pm (our little night owl) and then she was done for the night and went up to our room.
That morning, we started to pack up a little bit. We were able to rent out toys from adventure ocean and we were supposed to return everything to them the last day of our cruise. Well... we lost one of the little people. We search EVERYWHERE. We were like those people searching for that diamond. We tore our room apart and our room steward even checked for us, but he disappeared into thin air. I took the bag back to adventure ocean and they didn't even check the bag or ask me any questions and they never charged us which I thought was odd... After that debacle of searching our whole morning we decided to head over to the carousel for some of our last rides. When we got there they were having a family fun fair with all kinds of snacks... including the cup cakes up above and popcorn.
They also had a bunch of little games scattered around for the kids to play with. Kayla loves these giant connect four games.
They were giving away tickets for kids that played the games and won. I guess at the end of the fair they were giving away prizes, but you had to be present to win, and we had lunch reservations so we didn't get to stay for the whole thing.
We went to Izumi for lunch, and we sat next to a fascinating couple. They were art buying VIPs and had their cruise comped. They were telling us about different artists that they met during the cruise and how expensive some of the paintings were.... they ranged from $5,000 to $150,000 a piece, and they said that dozens and dozens of them had been purchased. They said they had bought a few pieces themselves. Crazy how people have that kind of money! Cody saw one of the artists in Aruba getting coffee, and he was talking about buying a $1-$2 million yacht. I guess he had been a troubled youth, and had been in jail. He had a job as a tattoo artist, but wasn't abe to do that anymore and started painting pictures instead and became a millionaire.
After lunch we went swimming for a few hours (love the big royal pools that are so easy to get access to). Then we hung out a little bit in the suite lounge. Kayla had her cherries and pizza and went to daycare for the last night.
We did our favorites! Went to dinner at Chops...
And then we were back to Wonderland for drinks and dessert. We want to try all of their drinks and desserts because they were all pretty cool looking/sounding.
Here is the crazy entrance in.
Dessert one. It's hard to describe what it was... almost like a candy puff and mango serbert.
Of course we got "The World"
This apple was gross... it was a really weird gelatin texture and I didn't care for it at all. The world was definitely the winner of the desserts on the whole cruise.
Here are the 4 Wonderland drinks, They were all ok except the catipallar smoke rings...
It was smoky bourbon. It literally had smoke in the glass when you drank it. I didn't realize it was bourbon... And here's my reaction in live time over a few seconds...
Yep... that's about the right reaction..
Bourbon... yuck... Cody knew my reaction would be funny so he took pictures.
Still fun to try!
Cody contemplating it...
Yeah... he wasn't a fan either...
This one not too bad. Once we were done with drinks we went to the farewell comedy show, and I felt that the comedians were even funny than their original show.
Last stop was boots and bonnet before having to get up early and leaving the next day. We had a 10:30am flight, so we took advantage of suite people getting off the ship first. We got up at 6am, had some breakfast and then went to the bionic bar at 7:30am where they walked us off the ship. We had so much stuff that we paid a porter to help us with everything.
Overall, I think that this was one of our best family vacations. Cody and I kinda felt like ourselves again during vacation. It was a nice pace to be on a cruise ship. We had plenty to do, and we got to have a lot of fun family time together. Kayla liked swimming in the pools with us, she liked getting to play with her toys on the beach, she absolutely LOVED watching the aqua show nearly every time it was on, she loved that their was unlimited vanilla ice cream cones that she could get whenever she smiled sweetly enough, she liked getting to go putt putt for the first time, she was SO pumped that they had a carousel that she could ride, she was our little duck hunter and was delighted to find some, and she LOVED the view from our balcony. We had so many fun family moments together.
Some of my favorites:
Restaurant - Chops
Bread - Jammie's Italian
Dessert - The world from Wonderland
Show - The Fine Line aqua show but Grease was good too
Drink - Blue Hawaiian
Cody and I were also able to take advantage of the daycare options on board and we had a lot of good couple time too, which we haven't had in a long time. We had a world of possibilities at night time... Want to see a broad way show? Want to go to a casino? Live music? Aqua Show? Ice skating show? Swimming? Massage? SO much to do, it was really great. Probably one of my favorite family vacations that we've been on so far, it just reminds me how much I love cruising. I can't wait for our next cruise on the Oasis of the Seas.
