Cincinatti Zoo Trip

 On April 13th my dream of going to the Cincinatti Zoo finally came true!  I have been wanting to go to the Cincinatti Zoo for YEARS ever since I heard about Fiona the hippos story.  I have been following her story for years and really wanted to go see her.  However, Cincinatti was always just far enough away that it required a bit too much time/planning to ever make it happen.  For Christmas this year, dad told me that he was going to pick an experience off of my bucket list and we were going to do it.  I choose the Cincinatti Zoo!  Dad paid for the zoo tickets, a hotel, and a tour of the hippo barn for me!!  Yippee!!

We drove down on Friday night and stayed at the Red Roof Inn.  I made the mistake of picking this place... I was looking for a place that was a decent price and seemed to be in a good area, and I figured that a big chain would have some quality control... wrong!  I must have missed the reviews on this place, because this place was not great at all.  You can see the chair was all torn up, and the ground was FILTHY.  Poor Kayla was walking around for a minute and had black feet.  The bathroom was also pretty gross, and the room had a funky/moldy smell to it when we walked in.  We got there after work so it was pretty late like 9ish and we were really tired so there wasn't much that could be done.  The pillows weren't great on the bed either... but oh well... we were only staying there for a night (thankfully)!  

The next morning we were up bright and early to go to the zoo.  We rented dad a motorized scooter for the day so that he could enjoy his day.  Kayla's main thing was that she wanted to feed the giraffes.  So we went there first and waited in line to feed them...

And she chickened out!  She was all about it until they were there to eat it and then she said "No you do it!" and let me hold her while I fed them instead.

She keeps saying that giraffes are her favorite animal at the zoo though and insists every time that we go that she wants to feed them.  Maybe next time...

Then it was time for the hippos!!  We had a walk all the way around the park, but we made it to their area.

They were all up and active!  I guess it had been cold/rainy earlier in the week and they had been mostly inside... so they were excited to get out today.  This was Fritz playing with his toys.  The trainers said that he is very toy motivated.

Watching the hippos swim by.

HI!!!!

I was SO excited to be there!!

Hi Fiona!  They were playing together.

Hi friend!!

Fiona took a selfie with me!

And with Kayla!  Hi girl!  She knows she's famous.

My girl and I!  We were there for a while, because I was really enthusiastic and excited to see the hippos.

Then it was time for my hippo barn tour!  I was with a small group and we got to go behind scenes and see where the hippos live.

This is one of the bottles that they fed Fiona with when she was a baby.  I really enjoyed the tour and getting to learn a little bit more about the hippos and see the hippo bar that I've been watching online for years.  Also, part of the proceeds from the tour goes towards hippo conservation in the wild, so I was glad to support that too.

After the tour, they gave us a tip that they were going to feed the hippos up against the wall... so I went there right afterwards.

Fiona posing.

Getting ready to get into the water.  I guess the momma, Bebe, will let her babies, Fiona and Fritz, come up to the feeding wall with her, but she won't let the male hippo, Tucker come.  He has to stand way back and get thrown some stuff.

Snack time!

Bebe and Fiona

Kayla watching them eat.

Both of us together!

Bebe is ready for her snack with Fritz on the side of her.

I adored watching these hippos interact and swim around.

Bye Fiona!  After staying at the hippo area for a quite a while, it was time to move on.  We grabbed a quick lunch and then walked around the rest of the zoo.  There weren't too many areas that were very novel/exciting over the hippo barn.  Everything else was pretty standard/we have better exhibits in Cleveland.

One area that we really liked was the Australian area.  They had a penguin area and this guy was our little friend.  I kept calling out to him and he kept calling back and swimming by us.  We played with him for quite a bit and people around us were even laughing that he liked us.

I kept saying, "Hi Friend" in a high pitch voice and he seemed to like it.

Dad on his scooter!!  Go daddy go!

Comparing his hands to the Gorillas.

The gorilla area was a fun spot too.  We got there too late in the day though because they were already sleepy for the day.  That's a big lesson learned at the zoo... animals are a lot more active in the morning and by the afternoon it gets hotter and they are more sleepy.  So go see whatever you want to first thing.

This guy behind Kayla was a rascal!  So glad that he didn't do it to her... but not too long after she left he came up and started pounding on the glass and startled people.  He does look like he has a mean look on his face!  Must have been annoyed, because he definitely made people jump.

The perfect day!  We had such a great time.  I picked this time of year because the tulips were in bloom too.

Family shot!

Kayla wanted to stand behind the flowers.

Momma and her girl.

She wanted me to go up behind the flowers too.

Daddy!

Love this picture of them!

After a while, we stopped and got some ice cream and bought Kayla a Fiona hippo stuffy.  The line here took FOREVER, but I'm so glad that we got her the Fiona stuffy because she has really liked it since we got home... and I really like it too!  I wanted to support the hippos/zoo.

Kayla was ALL about going on the train that went around the park.  Since dad had trouble walking and he was in a scooter for the day, they gave him a disability pass where they tell you how long the line is and then you can walk in the exit area with no wait.  Wish we had realized that sooner because we bought the tickets towards the end of the day and basically had to wait to go on the last train of the day.  It was ok, because we went to the kids play area for a bit while we were waiting and Kayla got to play some.  Kayla loved going on the train!   Overall, it was a fantastic trip and such a great Christmas present idea!  I love that idea of picking an experience off of someone's bucket list and getting it for them for Christmas.  I absolutely loved the experience and had such a great time getting to visit the zoo.  I'd like to go down to Cincinatti for a long weekend sometime and go to the zoo again and Kings Island.

Symphony of the Seas Cruise May 2024

This was our first trip on Symphony of the Seas and we were really excited to try out this ship. We were doing the same itinerary as last May out of New York City.  We flew into NYC a few days ahead of our cruise so that we could spend a day in the city.  

We stayed at the Hyatt Regency in New Jersey and we got a suite using our points!  The room was incredible!!  Here is part of our room.

Here is the other half...

And then we had a whole separate room!  With a huge couch and TV area.  

We also had incredible views of the city!  It was definitely the nicest hotel room that we've stayed in for a while!

Here we all are on our balcony with NYC in the background.  We ended up getting in later than we expected because our flight was delayed and re-routed due to storms being over PA.  So it took us a couple hours longer to get there.  So we just placed a pizza order and ate in our room.

Kayla was still enamored with the Statue of Liberty.  I wish that we could have made it over by the statue so she could have seen it up close, but it was just too hard to get there without a car and with Kayla needing to be in a car seat still.  I was honestly pretty disappointed that we couldn't make it work, because I think Kayla would have really liked it a lot.

The next morning, I woke up early and worked a half day from the hotel room.  It was nice to be able to work from there.  The room was perfect because the desk was in a seperate area from the bed.  So I worked from 5am-9am and didn't interrupt Kayla and Cody's sleep. Once I was done working, there was a big down pour!  Look you can barely see the city across the river!!  Luckily, the rain blew over around 10:45am and we were able to get out and about.  We were sooooo lucky that it was beautiful for the rest of the day.

The Path station was right next to our hotel, so it was really easy to catch the subway into NYC.  We stopped for lunch at Joe's Pizza which is supposed to be one of the best places to get pizza in the world.  Cody watched a podcast of a guy who goes around and ranks pizza places, and this place had a top score.

We approved!  It was pretty good pizza.  We were lucky that the line wasn't too long when we got there.  Last year, it was all the way around the block and we couldn't get in.

After lunch, we walked down to FAO Schwartz.  I LOVE this toy store.  It is such a fun place!  They have so many special things in the store.  They have a adopt a baby section, make your own barbie area, build a bear, a stuffed animal embroidery area, a create your own play dough/slime section, and so many areas where they demonstrate stuff.  We told Kayla that she could pick something special out.  I really wanted her to get a special baby doll from there, but she just wasn't interested in it.

She was very excited to check out their Barbie section and pointed out several things that she wanted on her Christmas list.

In the end, she loved these magical markers that the person was demonstrating.  She thought they were SO neat and it's just what she wanted... so we let her get them.

She also loved this little bunny set, so we let her get that too.  It was a heck of a lot cheaper than the baby doll that I was originally suggesting.

Of course, we had to make a stop at the M&M store!  This feels like almost tradition now to get a nice bag of M&Ms to enjoy during our cruise.  Kayla loved getting to pick out the different M&Ms into our bag.

Next we went to Hershey world!  SO much candy!!!  They give you a free small hershey bar when you walk in.  The had two kitchen areas... one where they had cookies, smores, ice cream, and milkshakes.  Nice looked soooo good.

But then they had an area where you could make your own giant reese cup.  Cody was really excited about this so we went for it.  You could pick 4 toppings and 2 sauces to put in your reese cup.  We picked mini reese pieces, chocolate chips, marshmellows, and smashed up reese cups, and then we put peanut butter and caramel sauce on top!  

It was massive!  Kayla was so excited for it!

This thing was huge.  I guess it can last up to 2 weeks in a fridge, but we only had a day... so we ate as much as we could... which was about half of it.  It was a cool experience though!

She posed with every Statue of Liberty item that she came across!  Kayla was getting pretty tired at this point.  We didn't bring a stroller with us during this trip, so Cody had been carrying her for most of the day.  So we decided to head back to our hotel room.

Cody eating the giant reese cup!  After getting back, we went to the playground next door to our hotel.  Kayla played for a bit and actually went down the big slide this year!!  I was proud of her.  But she was really tired and kept crying and she got hurt like 3 times while we were there so we left.  We walked down to Krispy pizza for dinner (yes pizza 3 days in a row).  It was just easy to get and while in New York... why not get pizza.  Once we ate, we came back to the room and played with Kayla's new toys and got ready for the cruise the next day.  She really wanted to swim, but we passed on it.

The next day we got to the cruise terminal early, and even though we had a 12:30pm boarding time we walked right in and through security at 10:30am.  There was an issue with Kayla and my boarding pass and they had to get like 5-6 people to try and help us figure out what was wrong.  Honestly, they got it fixed pretty quickly and we were able to get right onto the ship!  Hurray!!!

Here's Kayla's big smile once we got onto the ship.  She obviously approved of being on the ship!  Once we got on, we went right away to get some of our lunch reservations and quite a bit of stuff was already sold out and we couldn't get reservations.  It's good that we got on early and went right away.  This is my biggest criticism of Royal Caribbean is that they don't let you book this stuff ahead of time.  We got most of the things that we wanted, but we weren't able to get Hooked for lunch and we got the very last spots for Hibachi too.  

After making our reservations, we went to the Boardwalk area.  Kayla was SO excited that she was finally tall enough to go on the carousel all by herself.  She was very proud and excited of that fact.  After riding we went to playmakers for lunch and got burgers, fries, and drinks.

Kayla played in the playscape for a while.  And honestly in no time our rooms were ready for us to go to.

We loved having the ultra-spacious balcony room.  It had this little nook with bunk beds and it was perfect for Kayla.  She loved playing in the beds.  It was honestly the perfect setup for us, and the room felt soooo much bigger than the one we had on Icon.  Kayla had her own bed and then a "time out"/play bed.  She played in the top bunk and slept in the bottom.

I don't know what it was, but it felt like so much more storage and so much better of a room.  It was nice that our bags were already outside in the hallway so I was able to drag them down to our room and we got everything unpacked.  I know that this room is a bit extra than a standard balcony, but it was definitely worth the price for us.

More of our room.  Doesn't it look spacious?

Kayla playing in her bunk bed.

Chilling on the balcony.  I will say... I thought that it didn't matter, but I really do like having an ocean view balcony.  I liked the privacy of it.  

After hanging in our room for a bit, we explored the pool deck.  We looked at the kids pool area, but decided to go into the big pool instead.  We prefer the Oasis class pool setup vs the Icon setup.  We swam a bit, and popped into a few hot tubs too.  We were sailing away and of course, Kayla had to go over to wave goodbye to the Statue of Liberty... she's so into her!  We also got an ice cream.  Kayla was into getting twists this cruise.

Love that they have photographers around taking pictures!  We just took a screen shot of it.

Around 5pm, we went back to our room to get changed and get ready for our dinner at Chops.  We hid a few ducks on our way to dinner and Kayla found her first one.  Ducks are definitely harder to come by now a days... definitely getting very popular.  We went to Chops and dinner was pretty good.  It's funny that it seems like the crab cakes change with every ship we go on... these ones had a little bit of a kick to them but they were good.

After dinner we went to Wonderland for drinks and to get Kayla some cotton candy.  She liked watching the cotton candy dissolve into my drink and she liked the ambiance of the place.  She really liked the mirrors showed you upside down.

We tried going to the ice skating show, but Kayla HATED it.  It was just too loud for her in there.  They had technical difficulties and cancelled the show for the night.  It probably for the best because Kayla was pretty fussy/not liking it.  We ended up dropping Kayla off at Adventure Ocean and went to watch some live music.  We really liked the guy in the pub a lot... he played good music.  We got some blueberry mojitos from Boleros and hung out there for a bit.  We were staying up to midnight for the big balloon drop.

This was Cody's first time making it up for the balloon drop!  Good job baby!  We worked hard and jumped around to get a balloon of each color for Kayla.  She appreciated that we got them for her.  We went to get her right afterwards and she was one of the only kids left in the combined 3-8 year old room.  I guess all the other kids were either in bed or asleep by then.  We went back to our room which was perfectly located.  We were only a few floors down from Adventure Ocean and right by the stairs so it worked out perfectly and was so convenient.

The next day we slept in until 9am and then I went to the Windjammer for breakfast.  The windjammer was a bit inconvenient though because it was on the opposite side of the ship than where we were.  When I came back we relaxed in our room for a few hours and Kayla played with her toys in her bunk bed.  I'm thankful that they don't clean rooms twice a day anymore so that I didn't feel like we were getting kicked out of the room.  After relaxing a bit, we went to the Boardwalk area and Kayla went on the carousel all by herself.

She played in the climbing structure for a bit and then she got a free face painting on her arm.  They didn't have as much availability as they did on Icon for face painting times... they only did it for an hour here and there, but she still got a few over the course of the cruise.  

We also got to see a little bit of their pirate parade before we had to run to Jaimie's for lunch.  I did not care for lunch at Jaimie's at all.  There was literally nothing on the menu that I wanted to eat for lunch.  I do not think that I would go back.

Kayla really liked this car statue on the main floor. 

 After lunch, she went to the kids club for a few hours and Cody and I went to the Solarium.  We went in the pools and hot tubs.  I went to the super windy "king of the world" spot, and we had a nice relaxing time with some drinks and time to hang out.  At 5pm, I picked Kayla up and we went to the Aqua Theater to watch the 3rd Trolls movie.  Kayla was hungry during the movie and I got her fries, and pizza.

We went to Hooked for dinner and I have to say that this is my FAVORITE restaurant.  I could eat here every day!  There was a couple next to us with a 10 month old baby and they were STRUGGLING with him.  He was fussy and they kept having to stop eating their dinner to tend to him and I just felt so bad for them.  It made me realize I'm happy that I don't have a baby anymore!  Kayla was so sweet with the baby though.  She played baby shark for him on her ipad and kept trying to play peek a boo with him, and she even gave him one of the ducks she found.  Her food came out early so she ate her food and then she was getting antsy and was ready to leave... so Adventure Ocean was only two floors below us so I asked her if she wanted to just go there while we finished up dinner and she jumped right on that chance.  So I dropped her off and we were able to eat our dinner in peace.  It was a win win for all of us.  Our food at Hooked was incredible too!  I got a crab cake and mussels.  They have mussels on the menu as a meal or you can get them as an appetizer and I swear they give you the same portion as the dinner because there were SO many mussels.  It was SO good.  Then afterwards I got two lobster tails and they were great.  I was super impressed by Hooked.

Kayla was excited that our room steward made a friend for her Peppa Pig.

Cody and I went to the casino for a bit and actually didn't do too bad.  We were able to play for a while and didn't lose too much.  Afterwards, I went to go see Hairspray and he went to pick up Kayla.  He wasn't interested in watching Hairspray, but I thought it was ok.  

It started at 10:15pm and was an hour and a half long... so I won't lie... I was getting pretty sleepy during it.  It was a good production though and did have some funny parts.

I really liked the big guy that pretended to be the mom.  I thought that was hilarious.  I did watch the whole show and I was glad that I went to see it.

The next morning, I discovered the Solarium Bistro which was right above us.  It had all the food I liked and it was way easier to get to.  And it was easy to get a seat there too.  I sat a big table and chatted with some different people which was nice.

We went to the pool but Kayla wasn't feeling it.  She said she was sleepy and started getting crabby.  So we got lunch at the Windjammer which was only ok... I wasn't super impressed by it.  And afterwards she said she wanted to take a nap in the room.  So we went back and I sat on the balcony for a while.  After a bit, I look back and she's been sneaking around the whole time to grab all of her toys.  She thought she was hilarious when I finally turned around and saw her.

Here's her "sneaky squirrel stash" of toys that she had collected. She told me that she was just getting them to cuddle while she napped haha.  At first she said she wanted to go to Adventure Ocean for a while, but then changed her mind when we got there.  Around that time, Cody called us to let us know that dolphins were on the side of the ship.  So we raced back to our room to see them.  We sat on our balcony watching them jump around for a while, and then we decided to meet Cody in the hot tub.

We spent the next couple of hours in the pools and different hot tubs.  I could not convince Kayla to go into the kids swim/slide area for anything.  They had a dump bucket in it and she had no interest in the slides which blew my mind because she loved them on Icon.

I got her a frozen mango drink to see if she'd like it...

She LOVED it!  She said two million thumbs up.  So she really enjoyed her drink and we got out and lazed about for a while before getting an ice cream.

We ran to Adventure Ocean for a science experiment which was a volcano erupting.

Kayla's like.... I don't know about this... She was a little nervous about it and didn't want anything to get on her new dress.  Afterwards Cody stayed with her in the Adventure Ocean play area and I went for a shower.  I met them by the bionic bar for her to eat some pizza.  She loved the bionic bar, we sat and played there all the time.

We ended up going to an earlier version of the Aquashow.  Thank goodness that we did, because I saw it later in the week and it was a completely different feel to the show during the day/night.  It was much more intense in the dark.

Kayla LOVED the show!  I'm so glad that we went during the day, because it had a TOTALLY different vibe at night and I'm not sure if she would have liked it so much.  She loved mango drinks at the pool so much that I ordered us one for the show...  Famous last words...

Right in the beginning of the show it spilled ALL OVER ME!!!  Noooo!!!!  So I had to sit there with this cold sticky stuff all over me.  AH!  But I tried my best to enjoy the show and be happy for Kayla.

She loves the aerialist and has declared them all named Ana. 

She was really enjoying herself.

Memorized!  After the show, Kayla went to the kids club for a few hours and Cody and I went to Jaimie's Italian for dinner.  I liked it MUCH better for dinner because their short rib is really good.  Our waitress, Dewi, was really nice and a great waitress.  I ordered a drink but didn't like it and she noticed and came back with a surprise drink for me which was Malibu and pineapple.  It was really sweet and she gave me a rose napkin at the end.  We headed the casino afterwards, and Cody did really good and was ahead... and I... had fun I guess??  Ha!  I never win at the darn casino!  When we were done we went to pick Kayla up, but they were just putting the Trolls movie on and she didn't want to leave!  We had to coax her out of there.  They had a food themed night so she had a pretend popsicle and lollipop that she had made.  We were so glad that she had so much fun there.  I'm not sure why, but I got really sick that night and spent a lot of time over the toilet!  Yuck!  So I was up being sick for a good portion of the night.  Then the next morning, our neighbors were god awful.  They had a kid that screamed and through a tantrum in the room next door from 6:30am - 8:30am.  I was soooo mad about it.  I was trying to figure out which room it was coming from... at first we couldn't tell if it was on the side of us or above us.  Freaking little heathen, people can be so inconsiderate.

Breakfast took me forever because the Solarium Bistro forgot my omelet order, so I felt like I was there forever.  But when I came back to the room we hung out for a bit.  I wrote up my trip notes and Kayla played on her ipad for a bit.  Afterwards, we headed to the pools and hot tubs and met up with Cody.  Kayla really liked the hot tubs because they were really big and there weren't lifeguards in them... so there weren't as many rules.  There were a few times where we didn't have anyone else in the hot tub with us so she was enjoying getting to yell CANNON BALL and jumping into it.  We swam and had fun for like two hours before deciding to go to the windjammer for lunch.  Kayla LOVED this staircase... it was a piano that you could play.

She kept running up and down it to play the music from it.  Overall, I wasn't too impressed with the lunch in the windjammer at all, but it was ok.  Kayla wanted an ice cream and to get to go to Adventure Ocean, so we dropped her off and had a few hours in the Solarium where there were only a couple of people.  We could actually swim in the pool!  I love staying on the ship on port days and having it to ourselves!

This is a view of the Solarium pool.  It kinda feels like a viewing tank like we're in an aquarium or something.  I really wasn't feeling this design and tried to stay away from this clear section so that people wouldn't be looking at me.  It was kind of awkward setup, and the pool wasn't that big so there weren't tons of other places to go.

After a few minutes of relaxing it started to rain.  Luckily they have areas that are under glass so we could move our stuff so it wouldn't get wet.  Then we decided to go in the hot tub because it was under the glass shelter.  You'd think that it doesn't matter because you're already wet... but when it's down pouring it waters down your drink super quick.  So we wanted to be somewhere under cover.  Luckily the rain blew over in about half an hour or so.  So we chatted and swam in the Solarium for a bit and then went to get Kayla.

We went to the boardwalk and she played on the climbing structure and carousel.  Then she wanted to check out what the sugar beach store was.  Of course it's a huge candy store where you can get all kinds of different candies.  We walk in and the woman hands her a bag and goes "go ahead and fill it with whatever you want sweetheart."  Yikes... thanks lady!  Haha!

So she definitely had to supervise her in this place because we had no idea how much the price of the candy was. She ended up getting a few pieces of some different things.  The price wasn't too bad for what she got luckily.

Interactive art!  They had a few pieces like this all around the ship.

We went to our Bionic Bar hang out spot afterwards.  Kayla ate her dinner there and we got a drink before heading to Adventure Ocean/Hibachi for the night.

We went to Hibachi and the food and show were good as always.  I love cruise ship hibachi!  It's so much fun and it's delicious.

Afterwards, we grabbed Kayla from Adventure Ocean to take her for desserts at Wonderland.  She was excited by the restaurant, but the Mad Hatter was walking around and she did not like him at all. She was definitely scared of him with the paint on his face.

Here is the dessert menu.  You open it up to a puff of smoke and then have to flip it over to see the menu.

We decided to get one of everything on the menu to try for dessert.

The waiter gave her a heart, but her true excitement came a few minutes later when he brought her...

A cotton candy rabbit!!  It was a huge pile of cotton candy and she was soooo excited.

Her shocked face when she saw it!

Diving right in to eat it!

The whole dessert is so fun!

I had planned to go to the Aquashow again with Cody and Kayla, but neither one of them really wanted to go.  So they went back to the room and I went to the standby line.  I was able to get a nice seat in the middle since I was alone.  The show had been good during the day time, but it was INCREDIBLE at night.  It had a much more intense feel to it, and you could see some of the acts/lights a lot better in the dark.  It was very dramatic and had my heart racing at times.  I loved it in the dark.  I'm not sure how Kayla would have done... it might have been scary for her in the dark vs how much she loved it during the day time.  So I'm glad that things worked out the way that they did.  Coming back to the room my stomach was upset again, so I stayed up watching some tv for a while.

The next morning was Coco Cay!!!  We got up early and had breakfast and our neighbors were still being absolute terrors, so I called and reported them to security.  I'm not sure what happened from it, but it seemed like they got a little better after that.  

We had bought Coco Beach Day passes which let us go to an exclusive area on Coco Cay.  They had a huge pool that not many people were in and very comfy lounge chairs.  We were easily able to get a nice spot in the shade with an ocean view.  I won't lie, I was a bit skeptical of this place for the price tag and I wasn't sure how necessary it was for us to come here, but we had an incredible day there.  Cody and I talked about it, we aren't doing excursions anywhere else during our trip so we felt fine spending a little bit to come here.  We also got a pretty good deal/price for it too.

  They had a massive infinity pool that was fresh water and it was amazing.  Kayla and I were in that pool for most of the day.  We had soooo much fun playing together.

We were goofing around and doing "swan" poses and then we'd go "I said a boom chicka boom, 1 and a 2, and 1, 2, 3 and I'd push off from the side of the pool.  We didn't really have many people around us so we could push off the side and swim around a lot.  So we swam and played most of the day.  We did leave for an hour or so before lunch to run to the kiddie splash/waterslide area.  We had a lot of fun going on those slides together too.  Kayla was like "I love waterslides"  We even goofed around and ran around the big splash pad and made a game out of running under the big bucket and telling it that it couldn't get us.  She even got brave and stood under it as it came down eventually.  It was so fun running around there and going on the slides together.  She even got super brave and went on the big tunnel slide which was a first for her.

Our lunch was sooo good in the Coco Beach Club!  Surf and turf baby!  So much better than the food that they serve on the rest of the island.  The only bad part was that you had to have reservations for lunch and they only had it for 11:15am or 1:45pm which weren't really our preferred times to eat.  Wish we could have just walked in when we felt like it... but it was alright to have to go at a set time.

This was a coconut fried lobster which I thought would be amazing, but it was like a chicken patty of lobster meat and tasted gross haha.  After lunch we were all tired... I almost wanted to take a nap, but I knew that if I did that I'd be out for a while and I didn't want to miss any Coco Cay time.  Cody did end up taking like a 45 minute nap while Kayla and I swam.

Kayla got so good at swimming in Coco Cay!  She was swimming under water and jumping in.  The pool was not crowded at all and looked beautiful.  The only problem was that it did not have any shade at all so I ended up burning like a lobster in it!

Here's my little swimmer!  I knew after this momentum that when we got home that I needed to sign her up for swim lessons (which have been an incredible success... she loves swimming).

Swimming and playing with daddy.

She made it all the water over to him!  Big girl!

She LOVED jumping into the water and going under.  She was doing it over and over again for hours.

Woohoo!!

Two million thumbs up!

Cool chick jumping in!

She was having so much fun that she didn't want to leave the last hour to go back to the water slides.  She just wanted to jump into the water and swim to us.

Family picture of our fun day in the pool!  Loooved the Coco Beach Club.  I do think that we'd go back, but I'd also like to try the main pool on Coco Cay because I feel like it had more shade options.

Long day... she was so tired once we got out of the water.  Coco Cay closed everything a half an hour before we need to be back on the ship, so everything was done by 4pm.  This picture was at about 3:50pm, and she goes... I want daddy to see me go down the big water slide!  And I was like girl... that's on the other side of the island.  So as tired as we were... we ran across the island to make it to the waterslides and got there with 3 minutes to spare.

She was so proud to show Cody that she could go on the big slide this year.

Big girl!

She had just enough time to get to go on one more slide too before we had to leave.  She was very excited that she got to show daddy because she kept saying how proud of her that he was going to be.

Back to the ship after our perfect day at Coco Cay!  I thought that was just a catch phrase, but we have always truly had a magical time at Coco Cay each time we've gone.  I love it there.  We were whooped after going though, luckily we had some snacks in the room and I gave her a snack, a blanket, and her ipad and let her lay on the couch for an hour before we had to get ready for dinner.

This was my hair after swimming and being out all day!!  AHHH!!  I was relying on the cruise ships shampoo/conditioner for my hair... remind me to never do that again!!

We went to dinner at 150 Central Park.  For some reason, I always think that I don't really care for this place...  But they had some of the best bread on the ship and I really enjoyed the filet that I got.  It was overall a lot better than I remembered and I was glad that we ate here after all.

Afterwards, we decided to try to catch the ice skating show that we missed.  Kayla said the room was too loud for her so she opted to go to Adventure Ocean instead.  She was honestly kind of tired/crabby from being out in the sun all day anyway so we didn't force her to come.  Overall, I'd say that this ice skating show was only ok.. it definitely wasn't my favorite on that I've seen.  Afterwards, we went to the casino again for a bit... and once again Cody was the winner and I was the big loser.  We actually didn't stay out too late because we were tired and we knew Kayla was too.  And the poor girl definitely was, she had a melt down when we got back... poor baby... she was over tired.  And the next morning, I couldn't get her up and going until like 11am.

When we finally got up we went to the boardwalk to ride the carousel (she's so proud of riding alone) and get a face painting.  she wanted a rainbow butterfly which took our 45 minutes to get.

My solo big girl on the carousel. 

She wanted to get to ride it by herself and didn't want anyone to come on with her.  She did struggle getting on and off but she was pretty proud of herself for being independent.

Look at the thumbs up!  She's so proud of herself.  Afterwards, we walked around and hid some ducks.  We got her a drink at the bionic bar and then she wanted to go to Adventure Ocean for the afternoon.  Coyd and I headed the Solarium but the pool was packed!  Such a difference from the other port day when we basically had it to ourselves.  We could barely sit down and the water just felt yucky and you could see the layer of grease/sunscreen on top of the water.  It was HOT out, so we tried to the hot tub but it was way too hot for us.  So we sat in the pool making small talk for a while but I was kinda bored.  I missed my little buddy.  So we picked Kayla up and started getting ready for dinner.  I convinced her to try a shower.  The cruise ship had an adjustable shower head so I could make it her height and it was like the best thing ever to her!  She was running around in shower and absolutely loved the water coming down on her.  She said she wanted to take one everyday!  It was sooo much easier than a sponge bath!  She said if there is a shower, I will take a shower on vacation but if there is a bathtub, I will take a bath.  Haha!  Wish I didn't wait until the almost last night to give that a try, and I'll keep that idea in my back pocket.  She's always been afraid of the shower, but now she's getting a little bigger and braver.

After we got dressed up it was family photo time in Central Park before dinner.

Mommy and baby!

Family shot.

Daddy and his girl.

My big girl.

She loves doing different poses.

She loves getting her picture done and does pose after pose.

I call this one the "nana pose"

Love this one!

Family love!

The Charles Family.  :) 

We went to Jamie's Italian for dinner.  Kayla's food came out early and after a while she was done eating and was very antsy so again, I gave her the option to head right to the kids club and she was all about it.  So I dropped her off and came back to eat my food.  We had to eat quickly because we were going to see the flight dare to dream show.  We missed our reservation time and could barely get seats together.  We were way up front and off to the side shitty seats.  The show itself was ok, but nothing spectacular and I wouldn't go to it a second time.

We went to the pub for a bit again.  The guy was really good. We were getting a few drinks before the comedy show, but we were really digging this singer guy.

We went to the comedy show and there were two old guys performing and they sucked.  Neither one of them were funny at all.  They were telling "old guy" jokes that I feel like I've heard a thousand times before, and I just don't find the "I'm getting old and can't pee right" jokes all that funny.  Maybe I'm too young to get it.  But honestly, these guys weren't too funny at all and most times no one was laughing.  The guy was like "Gee this is what the end of a career sounds like" cause no one was laughing.  The one guy even said that he didn't like the first guy, and goes well there's always a second comedian haha.  He went on a political rant and I was waiting for the jokes to tie into it... but he didn't really have any.  we were going to go to the main comedy show in the theater the next night but for the first time ever we decided to skip it!  They were just that bad and I didn't feel like wasting our time listening to them again.  Afterwards we went back to the pub , but the guys was just finishing his set... it seemed like he was going on break every time that we walked in and that we would just miss him.  So that was a bummer, kinda wish we had just stayed there and listened to him after how terrible those guys were.  We ended up going to the casino... where again, I lost and Cody won.  He was really carrying us in the casino on this trip.  We picked Kayla up and she was still up at 1am with Ms. Cookie which was her favorite teacher.

The next day was an earlier day.  I got Kayla up to go to the pools since it was our last day, but it was cold!  It was like 65 and windy.  We went and played in the hot tub for a while, but then she begged to go back to the pool.  So we were one of the very few people in the pools that day (there were a few other crazy kids swimming too).  Then we were back in the hot tub before we grabbed lunch at Chops which was really good.  Afterwards we were back at the boardwalk for their family fun fair where we got cupcakes, face paint, and a balloon flower.  They had a girl dressed up and Kayla goes it's Cinderella!  And she wanted to get a tattoo on her arm.

Mermaid power!!  She and Cody waited in one line and I waited in the animal balloon line.

And guess who was making the balloon animals??  Ms. Cookie!  Kayla was so excited to see her.  Ms. Cookie was Kayla's special friend that she made on this cruise.

Kayla with her balloon flower.

With daddy!  

She played in the climbing structure and on the carousel for a bit.

We all got yummy milkshakes at Johnny Rockets.

Cookies and cream!

Family picture with the Symphony of the Seas sign!

We went back to the room to pack for a bit, and then Kayla said "I'm ready to make your dream come true."  And she said that she'd go down the waterslides and make different animal noises for me as she came down haha.  I had been trying to convince her to go all cruise long!

So we went and it was SO cold!  Kayla was one of the only kids going on the slides and only one of them were open, but she was ALL about it.

She was so happy and went on them over and over again.  I was like see you goof... you should have been going on them all week long!  We noticed that Ms. Cookie was one of the kiddie lifeguards in the area and she asked Kayla if she was cold and she said "NOPE!" and kept running and playing in the area.

She did end up getting cold in the end though and we went into the hot tubs to play for a while.  The hot tub right next to the kiddie area had a big group in it and when we went to get in they all stopped talking and stared at us.  It was pretty uncomfortable.  I was like... she's cold, can she hop in.. and they were like oh yeah.. .but she was too scared to go in with all of them so there was a hot tub on the other side that was nearly empty that we went to instead.  So got to play and swim around in there and Cody ended up meeting up with us and we all hung out there a bit.

I didn't realize how often Kayla ate pizza on this vacation until I was writing this blog!  She had a bionic bar drink and ate some pizza again before going to Adventure Ocean for the night.  She didn't want to come back to Hooked with us, so Cody and I went ourselves.  The food was great there... it was so good.  I just love their mussels.

After dinner we were right at the top to be able to go see the sunset.  I have NEVER hardly seen a sunset on a cruise.  I guess we're always eating dinner or doing something, because I've never caught a sunset.  So I was bound and determined this time to see it.

It was a nice moment for Cody and I to hang out and relax with each other.

My love.

He was all about taking a perfect sunset picture.

We took SO many pictures!  It was pretty cold standing out there so we had a find a spot to break the wind that we could stand against.

The both of us.  :) 

Such a great picture!

Zoomed all the way in!

It was so nice to finally get to see the sunset.  Afterwards we ran to the room and got all our bags out.

Kind of last minute, we decided to go see the second ice skating show, which was iSkate and it was AMAZING!  It had so much energy and was so exciting.  I liked it a lot better than the first show.  I feel like the first show was "artsy" but the second show the cast got to put it together more and show off a bit.  I really enjoyed it and was so glad that we decided to go to it after all.  It was fun and light.  Afterwards we made the mistake of going to the casino and lost pretty quick.  So we went and got Kayla and were done for the night.  The kids club gave her two goodbye present balloons, and when we got to the room, her purple balloon popped and she was DEVASTED!  Poor little thing cried her eyes out.  Next morning was an EARLY day for us... we were up at 6:30am to eat and then we walked off the ship about an hour before our departure time with no problems.  We got an uber and headed to the airport.  We got home early that day around 1pm and had a few days at home before work which was really nice.

Overall, I would say that we really liked Symphony.  I really liked that it had Hooked and Wonderland which were both really fun for us.  I think that I will lean towards ships that have Hooked in the future because it is my favorite eating venue that Royal has.  We thought that the shows on the ship were ok...  I didn't love the main ice skating show or Hairspray, but they were both ok.  Hiro was definitely the hero show on the ship... it was intense and incredible to watch.  I'm a big fan of the aqua shows.  The pools are big, but it's definitely hard to swim/play in them.  The lifeguards being right there and basically not letting you do anything limits it a lot.  Coco Cay did not disappoint, I think this was one of our best trips to Coco Cay.  I would definitely be open to doing the Coco Cay Beach Club again.  One thing that I don't love on Royal is that I don't think that their desserts are very good... they lean towards the bitter/dark chocolate side for all of their desserts and I'm more of a sweeter dessert person.  Symphony's Solarium was decent.  We liked how many seats it had and that it had two hot tubs... the pool was a bit small though with an odd design.  The kids area I thought looked like a lot of fun for the kiddos... even though Kayla didn't utilize it too much.  The kids club was also great with tons of activities for the kids.  I think that we will lean away from going out of NYC just to try a different itinerary.  We've noticed that not many people get off the ship at Port Canaveral which bums us out because we like having the ship to ourselves haha. Overall, we were really glad that we got to try out Symphony.  I think it was one of the better ships that we've been on for everything catering to us.  We were definitely never bored on this ship and had great things to eat.  I'd say overall it was a great trip!  While we were on board, we decided to book Icon of the Seas for our 10 year anniversary!  Can't wait for our upcoming cruises.