We were very excited for our first cruise out of New York City, on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas. We decided to head to New York a day before our cruise so that we could do a little bit of sight seeing there. We ended up going during hurricane season this year for the first time as well, and were incredibly lucky by amazing weather.
We flew out on Friday night and went on our cruise left on Sunday, so that gave us all day Saturday in NYC. We were nervous because normally we fly early in the morning and Kayla sleeps on our plane rides. But she did really good during the trip. She mostly watched her ipad.
Silly goose likes taking selfies...
Especially with silly faces...
More Kayla selfies!
We got a Lyft from the airport to the Hyatt House in New Jersey. We had a great view of the city from our hotel. We mostly got in and kind of hung out around our hotel on Friday night.
Cody had some uber eats credits so we got a delivery from Carlos's Bakery aka the Cake Boss. The desserts we got were great!
And we got some New York style pizza from Pizzeria Las Americanas which was pretty good too.
We went outside and this was the view of the New York sky line.
Our morning breakfast view.
The next morning, we hopped on the subway that was right outside our hotel and the first stop took us to the World Trade Center. I've always wanted to go there and see the memorials.
Kayla liked this statue on the other side of the road from the memorial.
Kayla and daddy taking pictures together.
Then we went across to the memorial. They had two pools that were very large. I am not sure if they are the size of the old towers or not, but they were pretty large.
The water was raining down and it made me think of people's tears.
All around the memorial was a list of the names of people that died. Some people had a flag or a flower on their name. Some people had these laminated cards with a picture of the person... those pictures are naturally what you gravitate towards. There were a lot of pictures with young mamas with little kids. It was really sad. We also came across a huge section of all of the first aide responders that died in the attack... and it was a massize amount of people. And it just made me stop and marvel at how many people put themselves in harms risk by running in to try to save other people. At first Kayla was jolly and skipping around, but then I told her that this was a sad place and that we had to be more respectful... and I was NOT prepared for all her questions. "Why is it a sad place?" .... There were towers that were attacked here and people died. "Why were the towers attacked?" ... Bad people decided to do it. "Why are there bad people in the world?" .... Umm, there just are honey but there are a lot of people watching out for the bad people now. "Why were the people that died in the towers?" ... They worked there... "Can your work get attacked by bad people too?" ... Most likely not honey, mommy's work is safe. "Did mommies die in the towers?" ... yes honey, I think so. "Why is there only one tower now?" ... Well the two old ones fell down in the attack and they only built one when they replaced them... "What did they attack the towers with?" Umm... (Not going to say airplane because we need to ride on one next week)... not sure honey... And she went on and on! I was shocked that it didn't go over head and that she had so many questions. I was definitely not prepared for that.
We found our way to a subway station near the trade towers and made our way to Central Park. We were there for a while and kind of wandered around different parts of the park. I never realized how massive Central Park actulaly is.
There are several playgrounds at Central Park. Here was the first one that we stumbled upon.
Kayla and Cody.
We walked around for a while, and eventually found the carousel. It was a little pricey to go on it, but Kayla was excited about it. Cody and I each rode with her.
She was excited that they let her ride by herself and I was able to ride a horse next to her.
Kayla and mommy posing before the ride.
After being in Central Park for a while, we finally found out way to the Central Park Zoo. It was expensive to go in, so we just ate at their outside of the park cafe called the Dancing Crane Cafe. The food was typical and they had a bathroom you could use if you bought something there too.
After lunch, we went to the side and you could see their sealion exhibit from afar for free.
The sea lions were up looking at everyone while we were there. We were thinking maybe it was almost time for people to feed them fish.
Not far from the zoo, was the Billy Johnson Playground... which I had read was the best playground in Central Park.
They had a slide that was SUPER popular. All of the kids were sliding down this slide and all the parents were laughing that this was the most popular slide in NYC.
Kayla kept running up the stairs and having a good time playing there.
Afterwards, we made our way towards Rockerfeller Center and passed St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was open to the public and free to go in... so we went inside quickly to check it out. Every time I go into a catholic church it makes me think of my grandma. She used to take me all the time when I was younger, and she would always light candles for people... so I couldn't resist lighting a candle for her in this beautiful church. I picked the display at that had a Mary statue because that reminds me of my grandms house.
Kayla wanted to help light the candle too.
Here is a picture of the cathedral.
Next we walked around Rockerfeller Center for a bit. It was pretty big, but lots of it felt pretty empty. I had heard that there was a really fun toy story there that we wanted to try out.
It was called FAO Schwartz. They had TONS of toys in the store and they had a lot of workers around giving demonstrations of different things. They had a fun sticker item where you could design various stickers with foil, they had fake snow that you could make, they had a board that you could write on that lit up, and all kinds of things they were demonstrating. They also had fun areas like the one pictured above that were fun interactive areas. It was really neat and we had a good time being in there. I told Kayla she could pick one thing out. They had a Gabby's Dollhouse section, a build bear section, a barbie section, funko section, droid section, safari animal section, a "real life" looking baby doll section that you could adopt the baby and it came in a swaddle and was weighted. They were like over $150 though so I tried to steer her away from that area haha. They did look like real babies though.
She ended up picking out this cute little mer-kittie that lights up and makes sounds. It is a FAO Schwartz exclusive toy and was pretty neat. I was excited to go through the store and we probably spent over an hour there walking through it.
After the toy store, we headed towards Times Square. On our way we stopped in the M&M store.
Kayla had fun looking around and she loved the walls of M&M's everywhere. We ended up buying about a pound of M&Ms that we snacked on all trip long.
Now would be a good time to mention that Kayla was SUPER excited about that statue of liberty. Every time we saw it, she pointed it out and wanted to look at it. I almost felt bad that we didn't do a tour to go closer to it, but I didn't think she'd have any interest in it. But I was wrong... she was very excited about it. I almost bought her a statue of liberty Minnie Mouse from the Disney store in Time's Square, but it was like $30 for a small little Minnie Mouse and I didn't feel it was worth it.
Here is a picture of Time's Square while we were there. It was super crowded with people. I would have loved to have seen a Broadway Show, but I didn't think Kayla would be able to do it.
And as a matter of fact, she totally zonked out during our walk through Times Square around 5:30pm. It was a long day for her. We grabbed some pizza from a place that we could just pop into called Carnegies Pizza. It was an alright place to eat, but nothing spectacular. Then we hopped through the subway system. We had to transfer to the path which is New Jersey's subway system, and we JUST missed the train by like a minute or two... so we had to wait 20 minutes for the next one to leave.
We came back to our hotel and hung for a bit before going outside to let Kayla play on the playground outside of our hotel.
She liked climbing and playing on this little ropes course. She did really good problem solving to get through it without touching the ground. She did not like going up high into the slide and cried and needed rescued. Luckily a little girl went to get her and brought her back down and then they played for a bit together.
I saw some lights on the ground and I was curious what it was... and I saw that it was an elaborate proposal set up. I saw a group of people setting up the proposal, and then the girls family/friends were in front of it blocking it until they walked up. I was nosey and waited around to watch the proposal. I think I might have photobombed their pictures by accident...
Here's the actual proposal. I'm a sucker for love. Cody was giving me crap for hanging around to watch... but what can I say... I love Love!
The next morning was a bit hectic. There were some storms and delays with our ship coming back in on time, so they told us to get to the port a bit later than we had anticipated. So we had breakfast at the Hyatt and it was awful. They had a large wedding party that they were also serving breakfast to, and it seemed like all their people went to serve the wedding while they ran out of everything for regular guests. They barely had any food, plates, drinks... nothing. Then we left to get to the port, and traffic was crazy. It took us about an hour to go a mile to get to the terminal. But we got onto the ship around noon, once we got dropped off at the port getting our bags turned in and then going through security onto the ship was a breeze... we were on in minutes. Our first stop was the suites lounge because our reservations weren't showing up in my app. But it turns out that I just needed to log out and log back in to refresh it. So that was all taken care of pretty quickly, and we headed to the carousel and Playmakers for lunch.
We really liked Playmakers and went there a few times during our cruise. They had a campfire smores cookie that came with ice cream. It sounded like it would be incredible but we only found it as being ok. It wasn't bad, but it didn't seem to have much flavor because we didn't bother ordering it again during our cruise which is odd for me. I was super pumped for this too, but it was mehh..
Kayla so happy to be riding the carousel. She was very excited at first, but I feel like she's used to such bigger rides now that the carousel doesn't excite her as much as it used to.
Next we went to sign Kayla up for Adventure Ocean. Here is the 3-5 year old room. They had so much fun stuff to play with. They just recently renovated Oasis at a dry dock for a few months, and you could tell that it was a big improvement over the Harmony.
The other side of her room.
They also had huge cabinets full of toys and craft supplies. Every time she came from here she had a fun new craft that she had made.
Here is the general play area. It was sooo much better than the Harmony. It had actual play structures instead of the half broken/lost toys that the Harmony had.
It was definitely a step up, but because we were able to drop Kayla off whenever we wanted to into her 3-5 year old room... we didn't end up coming here very much.
Next we got to go to check out our amazing room! I totally have a fail of not taking pictures of our aqua suite room. We had a full living room, separate bedroom, and a decent bathroom. Our balcony was incredible though! We this sitting area with a table and chairs.
Then turning to the right, we had this HUGE space on the balcony. Kayla was out here running back and forth all the time. We also had more chairs on the other end.
The other way we had two lounge chairs that we sat in quite a bit.
And then we had these high backed chairs that were supposed to be used to watch the aqua show. It was like unlike any room that we've ever had! It was incredible and I loved it! Our view of the ocean and the aqua show were great. We could also see people walking around the boardwalk. It was really neat! I was so excited we got the chance to stay in this suite, because it's going to be out of our price range for the next several ships we go on.
Next we went to the sailaway party and Kayla was given her first of many ducks during the cruise. We also got leis put on us. We didn't stay long, but Kayla liked waving goodbye to the statue of liberty as we pulled out. We were also in the pool when we went under the Brooklyn Bridge, and it was a big celebration and cheering which was a lot of fun and made me feel really excited.
Later on in the suite lounge, Kayla met another little girl her age named Kayla. We saw them a few times throughout our cruise and Kayla liked saying hi to her. After the suite lounge we started to hid some of our ducks, and Kayla was thrilled to hide them and was very excited when we saw someone get them or noticed that they were gone from where we hid them. We hid them throughout the ship, but Central Park was by far our favorite spot.
For dinner we went to our favorite... Chops! I got the crab cake and was disappointed that the recipe changed and it wasn't as good as before... unless we just got a bad batch, but we weren't impressed and didn't order them the rest of the cruise. Their shrimp cocktail and steaks are great though. Kayla also loved thier mac and cheese and gobbled a whole bunch of it up.
After dinner, we took Kayla to the kids club for the night and went to see the show One Sky. It was an okay show but I didn't really know any of the songs that they were performing. I actually heard a few people commenting about that. We also got to go to our favorite... the bionic bar. I love how good of drinks these Robots make.
After the show, we went back to our room for a bit and Cody crashed. So I decided to pick up Kayla from the kids club. She was still up and excited so I asked her if she wanted to go to the welcome abroad party on the promenade. They dance and sing for like an hour or so, and then at midnight they drop a 1,000 balloons. Kayla wanted to see the balloons drop but she was nervous about them falling down on us. So we were just going to leave, but as we got to the elevators she told me that she wanted to watch but from inside. So I understood that to mean that she wanted to watch, but she didn't want to be right in the action... she wanted a spot where she felt safer. So we sat down on some high backed chairs in Schooners Bar and watched it below us.
Here we are sitting together watching the party below us. She kept yawning and telling me that she wasn't tired, but that she just needed more air in her mouth. She really wanted to make it to midnight to watch the balloons drop. She was playing with my phone and taking pictures.
Here are some of Kayla's pictures she took...
She took this one of us being silly...
And then she just started taking selfies and making all kinds of funny poses.
It was so funny watching her.
Silly face!
Goofy girl.
Hi mama!!
She made it until about 11:45pm before she told me that she was too tired and wanted to go back to our room. I told her that she nearly made it, and she should just rest in her stroller and that I'd wake her up when it was time. So that's what she did. She curled right up in her stroller and took a snooze, and I woke her up right before the balloons dropped and she got to see them. I was talking with more people around me too while I was waiting because I forgot to charge my phone and it was nearly dead. Afterwards, I pushed her back upstairs and we went to sleep. It was a long and busy day for us. She's my little energizer bunny who can make it up at all parts of the night. I'm hoping she makes it at our Disney Christmas party in November.
Cody was up the next morning at 7am but Kayla and I slept in until 9:15am. It was nice to sleep in. I went to get some food at Windjammers and it was quite a line to get in and there were absolutely no seats in there. So after that, I pretty much decided that I was going to get room service every morning which was free because I was in a suite. So that worked out really nicely.
Here's Kayla and Cody playing on our balcony. She loved looking down and seeing if the aquashow was going on or not. She liked watching them practice too. She surprised us today, because she decided that she wanted to go the Kid Club instead of hanging at the pool with us for the day. So we dropped her off for an hour and a half and were like cool... some time with each other for once! We went to the Solarium but the pool felt freezing and I had no desire to go in it. So we hung out in the nice hot tubs and chated with people. We also laid out in the chairs and relaxed before going back to get her.
We grabbed Kayla and walked down just in time to see their little parade that they do on the main floor area.
Afterwards, we went and hid some ducks in the boardwalk which were basically found right away.
Kayla hiding ducks...
I love this picture of her! A little girl found this ducks seconds after Kayla hid it. But it's so fun watching how excited people are to find them.
We picked Kayla up a hotdog and cotton candy on the board walk before heading to Izumi's for lunch.
Kayla was cracking me up... she was using her chopsticks to eat her hot dog bun and I thought it was hilarous.
What a silly goose! We didn't love Izumi's for lunch. Their food was only alright and their service is always super slow. They also changed the sushi rolls from full rolls to half rolls so it just didn't seem like that much food, and the stuff I got was only ok. So we changed our lunch reservations and only ate her for lunch one time.
After lunch we went back to our room and we played with Kayla's mermaids and hung out on our balcony. Cody ended up falling asleep and Kayla had a SUPER amount of energy... so I told her what would become my go-to... let's go hunting for ducks! So we went to Central Park and she was super excited to find another duck that had a maraca on it.
Afterwards, we went to the kids splashpad area and Kayla had a lot of fun on the slides. She kept taking her different mermaids down the slides and giving them a turn to go on.
At first she was nervous of the buckets dropping water, but she quickly got over it and was able to dodge/avoid it pretty well. She kept running and running back up onto the different slides and she had a great time, and she was there playing for about an hour and a half... I don't know how she has so much energy. Cody ended up meeting us there.
Taking her mermaids down the slide. After the slides, we grabbed an ice cream cone that was nearby and hers was a bit much for her to manage. She has trouble with a full ice cream cone and would want to switch us for ours that were more eaten. She didn't like it when it dripped on her and she got upset about it. We learned to ask for a baby cone for her and with just a bit of ice cream worked out perfectly for her. Cody and I switched off a bit going into the hot tubs (Kayla is not a fan of hot water and wouldn't come in).
Afterwards, we came and sat on our balcony and watched the people warming up for the aqua show. Then we took showers and got dressed for the first formal night.
Kayla looked so adorable in her dress.
My little sweetheart.
Playing on our balcony.
Mommy and Kayla.
Family sunset picture off of our balcony. I loved our view of the ocean and the boardwalk area.
Love this picture of us! Oasis of the Seas...
Next we were off to the Aqua Show. We loved sitting in the suite area.
The show itself was INCREDIBLE! It was action packed, the music was great (80's themed), the diving was excellent, and overall it was just a really good show. We all really enjoyed it.
To me, it's just incredible how they pull off this show and how much goes into it. They had one section where two guys were jumping and doing tricks on a tight rope and it was really cool. I think my favorite part was when they played the song another one bites the dust and all the divers dived into the water during that part. But they had lots of good parts... it really was amazing.
Kayla absolutely loved it. I'm so glad that she can enjoy these shows and have a good time with us.
She loved the aerial acts.
After the Aqua show, we went to Giovanni's for dinner. I think Giovanni's is only ok.. and I feel like we much prefer Jamies Italian over it. When we walked back to our room, there was a special duck on the door that a nice lady in my facebook group delivered for Kayla. We walk up and Kayla goes... I FOUND ONE!!! And I was like... what?? And sure enough there was a cinderella duck and she was absolutely thrilled by it.
We also had a towel animal on our bed which she really liked playing with. We were going to watch the Aqua show from our balcony, but it ended up being too windy and the second show got cancelled. We went back down to see if there were any live music but every venue was jam packed and busy... and then Kayla fell asleep in her stroller so we decided to call it a night and go back to our room to bed.
I woke up in the morning and had room service delivered for breakfast. It was a delicious spread of food and I loved it. It was pretty comical though because they delivered everything on it's own covered plate. Want a banana? Here's a whole covered plate. Want a muffin... another covered plate. We stayed in our room for a bit on our balcony in the morning and watched the aquashow people rehearse. Then we made our way to the boardwalk to play in the big bus, and eventually to central park for ducks. Above is one of Kayla's latest finds.
My little duck hunter searching out a duck... We tried to play putt putt afterwards, but there were some wild kids running around and kind of ruining it for everyone. Kayla and I ended up hanging out and playing in our room for a bit.
We ended up coming to the kids pool area, and Kayla took some of her ducks into the pool/slide.
Sliding down with all her ducks.
Such serious business.
After letting Kayla swim a bit, we went to Port Side BBQ... and oh my goodness... I loved it!! The portions were huge and the food was delicious. My brisket was SUPER good, and I loved their banana pudding. This restaurant was such a great addition to the ship, and this is the first ship we've been on that has it.
We decided to go walking around for more ducks in Central Park, and Kayla spotted this one way up high.
They were really working to get this one!
Afterwards, we went back to our room and Cody fell asleep on our balcony. Kayla started lining him up with all of her hurt. She'd sneak around and place one on him and laugh like crazy. She thought it was absolutely hilarious, and I won't lie... it was!! We were both snickering as she did it.
Look at that little stinker... she thinks she's so funny.
Then of course she had to wake him up so that he could see he was covered with ducks haha. Around 4:30pm we dropped her off for her one real long time at the kids club. They actually served the kids dinner this night, so we took her there and went out for the night.
First we went to the adults only area for an hour or so and hung out in the pool/hot tub and overall just enjoyed some nice time together. Then we went to hibachi! I LOVE hibachi on cruise ships. It is always a fantastic experience and our cook is always hilarious. I've never had a bad hibachi show on a ship. It's also nice to not have to worry about the price of anything you want on the menu. Cody and I both got shrimp and lobster... yummm.
After dinner, we had a little bit of time to kill before our comedy show so we went onto our balcony and watched the aqua show again. We both felt a little guilty to be watching it without Kayla, because she loves it so much. It was really neat to watch it from up high, and was definitely a different perspective. I still couldn't fully figure out how they are able to put the show together. Some of the things they do underwater just amaze me. After the aqua show, we got some drinks and headed to the comedy club. We sat next to a couple that have been married for 60 years and they were funny. The comedians were pretty good and interacted a lot with the crowds.
After that, we went to the Quest... which is an adult only show but it's pretty funny to watch. We were in a really small/not that fun section so that made it a little less fun... but still funny to watch.
Here are the guys dressed up in girls clothes, and they did their struts and walks around the room. After the quest, it was like 12:15 and really late so we decided to go get Kayla. They don't give out phones for her room so I was a bit anxious about her. Apparently she fell asleep, but peed herself and was crying for us to come get her. She had fallen back asleep when we got there, but we both felt really bad. That was her last really late night there. Hopefully by our next cruise she will be fully potty trained - including night time sleep. She's good during the day, but just has no motivation to not wear a pull up to bed. The daycare worker woman did tell us that they hoped she would come back to see them soon. They said she was quiet, polite, and played well with the other kids.
Next day was Coco Cay! Hurray! I've wanted to come to this private island forever. When we were there, there were two ships in port but we didn't find it over crowded that much.
Kayla was a little cranky at first and didn't really want to be there. She and I went to the kid slide/splash pad area and I went down with her the first couple of times and then she started to get into it more.
Cody was able to get us two chairs in the shade right by the entrance to the main pool.
Here is part of the giant pool that they have. They have a big super packed bar area too, with a dj that plays songs. So it was a big party area, and the drinks coming out of the bar were super rushed and not too good. I decided to forgo getting anything frozen and just go malibu and cokes because those are harder to mess up. The vibe was fun around the bar area, but we tried to stay out of the massive crowds. We found a spot where we were more or less on our own, and Kayla kept plugging her nose and jumping under water (a little bit) over and over again. She LOVES jumping into pools. Just put a floaty on her and offer to catch her.. and she's in paradise.
They also had a fun little pirate ship area that Kayla liked running around and playing in.
Here she is walking the plank.
We ate lunch at the shake shack and the food was only ok... not the best. I decided to walk around the island a bit, I was hoping to find some ocean waves to jump in like Myrtle Beach, but only the super calm ocean areas were open to people to swim in. Anything with waves wasn't a beach area that you could go to. I did get a decent drink at one of the less crowded bars. I realize that I like Pina Coladas.
Overall, we had a good time on Coco Cay. I'm excited for the new adults only section to open up soon, because I feel like that would make the main pool a bit less hectic. They are advertising it as a big pool party, so I'm hoping most of the party people will go there. We did have a good day in the pool and overall on the island. If the price is right, we might upgrade to the private section that has nicer amenities and super good food.
We went back to our room to change, and then the duck hunter was on the loose. At this point in the cruise, she had already found 16 ducks. I created a duck hunting monster! She absolutely loved finding them. She found one on our way to the ice skating show, called Frozen in Time. She LOVED this show. You can see the look on her face. She was in pure joy and happiness. The show had the ice queen (aka pretend Elsa), the little mermaid, the ugly duckling, and a couple other Hans Christain Anderson stories. It was a really good show.
Here comes the ice queen part.
Absolutely fascinated.
There she is!!
Yaaaay!! Finally after months of watching the ice skating show at home, we finally got to see her!
Now here comes the Ugly Duckling.
She was adorable and held up her ducky to show him!
Mermaid portion.
Hans Christain Andersen
It was such a good and exciting show. Kayla absolutely loved it. Afterwards, we went back to Central Park... and of course Kayla found another duck right away. We went to Chops for dinner, and it was super busy/over run for the night, and the service seemed to take a while... but it was Chops and delicious.
We came home after dinner and found a monkey hanging from our ceiling. Kayla was really excited about him, and wanted him to stay in that spot all night. She wasn't happy when we moved them.
Beautiful view to wake up! Room service forgot my order this morning, so I had to go to wind jammers. It was SO packed and there were absolutely no seats at all. So I just grabbed my food and ate out on the balcony.
Back on our duck hiding and hunting mode! This was ALL that Kayla wanted to do during the cruise haha. It was without a doubt her favorite part. Afterwards, we went back to Port Side BBQ again and at their yummy food again.
Cody and Kayla hiding ducks in Central Park. She tried to put some in tricky spots. Today was a port day, and the ship was pretty empty. So we had the pools and water slides to ourselves. Cody and I went on the bigger slides and we enjoyed time in the pool together. Kayla also went on the kiddie slide area a bit too. After a while, we dropped her off of the kids club and went to hang out in the Solarium. Being able to drop her off every now and then for an hour or two, and just to get time together in the Solarium was amazing. There is no other vacation where Cody and I get that kind of time together, and we really needed it. The Solarium also made the best drinks on the ship, I had a kiss on the lips there which has a splash of grenadine in it, and then a mango frozen drink.. and it was incredible... tasted SO yummy. I honestly don't like drinks that taste like alcohol. I tried ALL kinds of drinks during this cruise, and I'm convinced that I would be just as happy with virgin versions of all the drinks I had, and like them more than the alcohol ones. And what was great was that when we went to pick Kayla up from the kids area... she was super happy and excited. We could tell that she'd had a great time. She actually had a balloon animal and was SO excited to show us... but as she was walking out it popped, and she was just devasted and embarassed. She cried the whole way to our room and was just clinging to Cody. Poor baby. She was so upset by that, and then saw that we were in somewhat wet bathing suits and accused us of swimming with out her... Guilty... sorry baby girl.
So of course, we changed as quick as we could and went off on a duck hunt to help get her mind off of it. We went to 150 Central Park, and the food was actually better than I remembered it. We really liked their bread that they served.
Our waiter, Edwardo, asked called what her favorite animal was, and she said a duck... so he folded a table cloth into a duck for her.
She was thrilled!
It quickly joined her duck collection and she let it play with her other rubber ducks that she had found. Afterwards, we ran to the Aquashow to try to get a seat. Our suite concierge was not that good for us this time. Our first ones, re-made reservations for us so that we could sit in the suite area for all the shows, but this pair that we had wouldn't get us reservations again. So we waited in a massive line, and could only find one seat. So Cody ended up going to the sports bar instead, and Kayla and I watched the show together.
Afterwards, we ran as fast as we could, to the other side of the ship to watch the ice skating show. We just barely made it in time, and had to sit on the end in one chair together. Here is Kayla showing the Ugly Duckling her napkin duck haha.
Kayla desperately wanted to be one of the 4 kids picked to go on the swans and get pushed around during the ugly duckling part of the show, but we were too far away and they only picked kids on the front row (this area was reserved for Star suites so we could never get the seats).
We had kind of cool seats on the sides, because the performers came up by us, and we could see them going off stage sometimes... So it was a neat angle to sit at once. Afterwards, we met Cody at Sorrentos for some pizza and drinks. We let Kayla watch the second aqua show on our balcony for a few minutes before bed.
Another beautiful morning. We got SO lucky on our cruise. Our weather was absolutely perfect, and the water was a smooth as glass. We didn't have a single bad day our whole cruise, which was super lucky because we were here during hurricane season. Pretty sure the cruise before and after us had a hurricane to contend with. So we were super lucky. I had my room service delivered, but stopped getting the eggs because they tasted like a powdered disgusting mess.
We went around hiding/hunting ducks for a bit before heading to Adventure Ocean for a cute puppet show. It was SUPER crowded in the puppet show, but I was able to get Kayla a spot up front.
It was a glow in the dark puppet show, and Kayla definitely enjoyed watching it. She kept asking to go into the room where it was at every time we went by it. Afterwards, we went to Chops for lunch. I got their chicken which I remembered as being incredibly good, but I thought it was only ok when I had it on this cruise.
We tried going swimming in the pools, but it was CROWDED today. It was such a difference from the day before. Also, someone had threw up in one of the pools and it was closed for most of the day to be cleaned so that didn't help, and the other pool was having a belly flop contest. We couldn't see the belly flops but we heard all the commentary and ohhhs and ahhhs people were doing. It was pretty fun to listen to it, I kind of wish we had gone to watch it. But after an hour of fighting the crowds, we decided to drop Kayla off at Adventure Ocean and go to the Solarium. But Kayla was mad at us for dropping her off, and she let her displeasure at missing out be known, but we needed a break! There was this nice lady that made Kayla some special ducks for the cruise and she left them on my door to hid for Kayla later. So I walked clear across the ship to get these special ducks for her. She had a large momma with 3 baby ducks, and then a couple of other ducks that she had bedazlled with gems. So they were premium ducks I went to get for her.
I went upstairs in the Solarium to get a good drink, and I heard all this cheering and people going crazy. I was like what the heck...
Well someone brought in a water ball and everyone was throwing it around, and cheering when someone made a good catch. At first they were throwing it around to everyone, and then even the staff got into it and started playing. The one bartender played for quite a while, and hopefully didn't get in trouble because of it... At first, it was a lot of fun but it went on a bit too long for me. I ended up leaving the pool area and going to the hot tub instead.
After hanging in the Solarium for a while, we grabbed Kayla and got ready for the night. We didn't have a bathtub in our room this time, and Kayla is afraid of the shower... so I gave her sponge baths every bath. I'd have her stand in the shower area and I used water from the sink and poured it on her to get her clean. Kayla had a super amount of energy and wasn't cooperating on getting ready. She did get really excited when I brought out my makeup bag and put a little bit of my makeup on her. Once we were dressed and ready we went out to take some of my pictures of the cruise.
My little model!
I love this picture of the two of us.
Girl friends!
My sweet baby girl!
Could she be any cuter?
I had to get a picture of her in her favorite duck hiding spot. She loved hiding ducks here. We were going to do family pictures before going to the ice skating show, but since Kayla and I were taking a little longer to get ready... Cody went to the suite lounge to get a drink and was going to meet us. There were people taking professional pictures there so it was hard to get around, and we must have just missed him in there.
We ended up catching up with him at the ice skating show.
We almost sat down low on the side, but there were two little boys in the front row that I thought they'd pick for the swan portion of the ugly duckling. So we moved to sitting in the very center (which was a GREAT seat), and then one of the little boys chickened out and they would have definitely picked Kayla is she had been there. She was bumming out about it. Whoopsie.
On our way to dinner, I hid all of Kayla's special ducks for her to find. She absolutely loved the mamma duck and babies.
She played with them the entire dinner at Giovanni's. Overall, we weren't that impressed by Giovanni's.
Here are some of my favorite family pictures. I got this one printed out and it's my facebook profile picture.
I never know what to do with arms in poses haha.
Kayla in Central Park! After taking pictures, we took a protesting Kayla to the kids club. She didn't want to be left out of what we were doing, but she always ended up having lots of fun at the kids club.
Cody and I had been dying to go to the Music Hall and see the live music there. I had a long list of drinks that I wanted to try from there. We sat there for a little while, but Cody was really tired and didn't want to be out long.
I tried a few drinks from the music hall... and I just learned that I just don't love alcohol that much. It upsets my stomach and is so acidic. I had a hard time drinking specialty drinks.
Here is a view of the music hall. It wasn't as interactive and fun as the piano bar on Norwegian.
Afterwards, it was mommy's night out. I went to the disco party. I love the disco party, but wish I had someone to party with during. I went to it by myself this cruise and our last cruise.
After the disco party, I danced my way down the casino and lost $100 in about 15 minutes it felt like. So afterwards I headed back to our room.
Here is my proud little duck hunter with her final duck selection. She found over 33 ducks during our cruise! I told her that she could keep 5 for herself, and then she wanted to keep on for Ana, Sarah, and Maia and I told her that was a very nice idea and that she could. We counted the mama and babies as one.
Here they are... her cinderella duck, mama, babies, and big brother duck, sparkly blue duck, gemmed up unicorn duck, and a cruising themed duck that I really liked. After we selected her ducks to keep, we went all around the ship hiding the extra 20 or so that we still had. It was fun watching people find them.
We went back out to the pools for a bit, but Kayla wasn't into the kids area today. We ate a playmakers for lunch and had their wings which were really good. We also got a milkshake at Johnny Rockets. We dropped Kayla off at the kids club at 2pm and hung out in the Solarium. I went to my favorite bartender that made delicious drinks and got another Kiss on the Lips (grendadine, peach schanpps, and mango mix). People were playing with balls again, which kinda annoyed us now... so we left to go to the hot tubs but it was a bit too hot for it.
We picked up Kayla packed up our bags and got them outside so that we were ready to go. On our way to dinner at Chops, we got a message that our flight was cancelled the next day due to incoming storms in the area. And that caused us a bit of panic because we had to figure out a new way home. Another flight was out of the question because there wasn't availability/price was outrageous so we ended up having to get a rental car and make the drive home the next day. After dinner, we watched the Aquashow again before dropping Kayla off at the kids club for an hour so that we could go to the farewell comedy show. It was a pretty good show.
Overall, I'd say that we had a great cruise. We totally lucked out with our weather... it couldn't have been more perfect. I don't think we'll be traveling during hurricane season again though. I much prefer going in the winter/spring time where it's cold at home and then it's a nice break going on vacation. I'd rather be home during that time of year. However, the cruise itself was excellent. We really enjoyed Oasis of the Seas and thought it was a great ship. Their Adventure Ocean kids area and adults only area were much better than the Harmony. We also liked their sports bar and BBQ restaurant. Cruising is the perfect blend of family time and adult time. Cody and I got to spend a decent amount of time together which rarely happens when we are on vacation. So that was really nice. We have two more cruises booked for next year and can't be more excited to go!
