The night before our cruise we stayed at Dania Point like we have in the past at the Hyatt. We got there and tried to go swimming but the pool was pretty cold so we didn't really stay in it very long (I actually didn't even get in, but Cody and Kayla did for a few minutes). Here is Kayla with her ducks that we were going to hide once we got on the ship.
She was very enthusiastic for the duck hunting but it proved to be EXTREMELY competitive on our sailing on the Icon. She did end up finding about 10 ducks but it was a far cry from the 35 we found the cruise before.
We walked around Dania Point, and ate dinner at Disalvo Italian restaurant in town which was a small family run Italian restaurant. The food was really good, we got a pizza, garlic knots, and meatballs. We also got ice cream in the town center area later on that night.
We listened to a performer for a little bit. Kayla was hoping that the hula hoop girls from the previous year would come there but we didn't see them. We didn't really stay out too long because we were getting ready for our cruise in the morning.
We got in a little bit early to the port then our 11:30am time, but we walked right in and got right onto the ship. There were no questions asked about our check in time. We were on the ship around 10:30-11am. We dropped our rental car off and got onto a shuttle with another family, and that family was on Icon and we ran into them all throughout our cruise. It's funny how some people you just have the same path with. The first thing that we saw was the Pearl which is a new feature of the Icon class ships. It was really pretty and a fun place to take pictures at. We went around and got our reservations made for things fairly quickly and easily and signed Kayla up for Adventure Ocean. We walked around Central Park and hide our ducks as well.
Next stop was Surfside. Kayla loved this play structure area. She wanted to play in it every time we walked by it.
They also had a slide that in theory seemed like a fun idea, but I saw several kids getting hurt on it. We saw one little boy really limped and hurt and it scared Kayla so she wasn't too interested in the slide. I think this was a nice thought in theory, but probably not too good of an idea.
She was excited the first couple of times going on it though.
They did free face paintings every day from 9am-5pm! It was such a nice offering. They also did balloon animals and had Admiral Awesome walking around doing magic tricks and things.
Happy girl seeing her flower tattoo.
Two thumbs up!
They had a soft serve ice cream spot in surf side that was pretty popular. They also had the Lemon Post bar which we really liked. They had a couple of drinks that were really tasty, but Cody and I really liked the Sailer's Delight. It was very refreshing and a little sweet but not too sweet. It was really easy to drink.
Next we went to the Aquadome Marketplace area for lunch. The portions of the food were more snack sized and not really a lunch size, but it was a really cool idea. I absolutely loved the crepe station! I think that I ended up getting a crepe every day. The people working there said that they are by far the most popular booth in the marketplace and that they constantly have a line. They were very yummy and made a couple different flavors. I'm a big nutella and banana fan. They actually ran out of bananas a few times and I saw people actually bring in their own banana from somewhere else on the ship to make sure that they could get a banana and nutella crepe.... which was genius and a good tip to remember for the future!
Our room was ready by 1-2pm. The time seemed to go really fast because we were exploring so many new areas of the ship. We went into our room and had a balcony room for the first time since we've sailed with Kayla...all the other times we were in a suite... so the size was a bit smaller. We had a central park view infinity balcony. While it was a bit tight, we did make it work. The infinite balcony had a button where we could lower the window and make it a balcony if we wanted... if not, it was just extra space in our room. It ended up being Kayla's own little room. We put her bed there and most of her toys so the infinite balcony worked really well for us.
After unpacking, it was time to go swimming! Kayla was more than ready to get to the pool. So we checked out the big mega pool on the 16th deck in chill island. We swam here for a bit and Kayla even ventured into the hot tub. The hot tubs weren't too hot and she enjoyed playing in it. My bathing suit created a bubble in the jets that she loved popping and we made a fun little game out of it.
We headed back to Surfside to check out the slides there. Kayla LOVED it there. She was going on the green slides over and over and over again. She was having a great time. We were there for over an hour. I eventually convinced her to try out the bigger tube slide and it was her favorite after that. My only gripe with this whole ship is that this area was a bit underwhelming to me. I wish that they would have had more slides for the kids. They did have a nice parent sitting area off of the slide which I appreciated, but only having basically two slide types wasn't that exciting. I could see kids a little bit bigger than Kayla being bored with it. Kayla did love it there and had lots of fun on the slides... I just wish that it was more like the areas we had seen on the Oasis ships. But for Kayla this area worked really well. They had a pool that was about 3 foot deep at it's deepest, kids food offerings, the water slides, the playscape, face paintings, the carousel... she was really living her best life in this surf side area.
We had fun waving goodbye to Miami at the sail away. We danced around and waved goodbye to the people lined up. We went to Giovanni's Italian restaurant for dinner. Cody was really excited about it, but I didn't see much on the menu that I wanted. I felt like our dinner was very similar to what we ate the night before in Dania Point. It was ok though. Right after sailing away, we went straight to the dueling piano bar. This was by far my favorite addition to Royal's fleet. This place was a HIT and was always packed. You had to get there at least a half an hour before their show to get a seat. People were often standing in the bar area and even outside of the venue watching. It very much had Howl at the Moon vibes, and Kayla really liked the girl Emily. She didn't know a ton of songs, but then she started playing a Moana song but someone paid her to skip it... and Kayla was saaaalty about that. She didn't even like our Brown Eyed Girl song that they switched to afterwards. It was a lot of fun though.
Afterwards, we were still trying to find ducks and we walked around looking for some. I ended up planting one for her and then finding one by the Pearl. We did not have reservations for the Aquashow the first night, but we got a tip that the seats up top of the show are not reserved. So we went around 9:15 to stake a claim for seats for the 10:15pm show. We figured that Kayla might not make it that late the first night, so we didn't want to use our one reservation on that show. Which was totally a good instinct because she fell asleep about 20 minutes into it. They started with a robot section and she always fell asleep at that point at home, and she did at the show too.
The show was really neat and had all the elements of the other great shows that we've seen. It just seemed like this show was really short. It was only 30 minutes long and seemed to go by really fast. At the end they showed us some things that they are experimenting with and wanted to get an audiences reaction. They had a contortionist doing things in the water which was pretty amazing.
At this point, I dropped off both Cody and Kayla at the room and I went back out to the welcome abroad party on the promenade. I was dancing and waiting for the balloons to drop. I had a plan of getting a pink balloon for Kayla to play with. I have never been in the mix during the balloons dropping... I've only been in the area. Turns out I did not like it! The 10,000 balloons drop which is cool, but then people start popping them and it kind of stung a little bit and it was super loud. I grabbed the pink balloon for Kayla and couldn't get away from there fast enough! I was like Nope! Run away! Run away! Afterwards, I ran right up the midnight Dueling Piano bar show which was about 45 minutes long and a lot of fun. Emily was brand new to the ship and was absolutely killing it. She was great and had lots of funny sayings. She said a paper was a suggestion and a request had money with it. She said one would help her pay for her boob job and the other she could stuff her bar with. Looking for tips for tits.
The next morning, I got breakfast at the Surf side eatery and it was great for me. It had everything that I would really want and it wasn't crowded at all.
After we were up for the day (we had lazy days almost every day... it was around 10am-11am before we got going), we went to try to go duck hunting... but it was COMPETITVE on this ship. We really didn't have much luck at all. There were tons of people searching and it seemed like there were so many areas to hide ducks in that we didn't have our usual "go to" spots to find them. So we ended up at the pool area. We found a small little pool by the coco loco and the lime and coconut bar. Kayla and I had a lot of fun swimming in it. It gave us good views of the ocean and it wasn't very deep. I went to the frozen lime and coconut which I was really excited about, and then we got Kayla an ice cream and kinda wandered around the ship a bit.
We ended up in the surf side pool area and Kayla got to go on the slides for a while. At first, Kayla was just going on these green slides over and over again.. she was too scared to go on the big slide.
Getting squirted by the water sprayers.
Living her best life!
Here is a view of the surf side pool. This ended up being a fun spot of us to come to.
Move views of the pool.
The back side of the slide area.
The baby pool section.
Afterwards, we went to the Next Cruise area and decided to book the Wonder of the Seas for 2025! I'm not sure what it is, but when Royal is doing the weekend cruises for their ships doing a back to back is so inexpensive. We were actually able to book a 2 bedroom aqua theater suite! This is my bucket list room to stay in. When we first started looking at suites, I thought that this room looked incredible. I am SO SO SO excited to get to stay in it! I'm even more excited to get to have a Royal Genie! Yay!
Then we started wandering around again on the duck hunt.. and we noticed that everyone had their camera's and were watching something. Turns out that our ship was in the middle of a rescue operation. There was a boat in distress that flagged our ship down to help it. They sent out a life boat to investigate what was going on. We ended up taking 14 people on board that were trying to get from Cuba to Miami. They had been lost at seas for 8 days. I guess this is something that happens on occasion, but not that often so it was big news to the crew too. We went to the 1400 bar, and Cody had some pretty good pictures of the rescue operation. We were telling these two bartenders what was going on and showed them the pictures. Their names were Eka and Roberta.
The 1400 bar ended up being our favorite bar. All of the bartenders were great, and these girls all fussed over Kayla and made her special drinks in champagne glasses. Of course, my little ham was eating it up.
Cody loved the 1400 drink and it was his regular go to drink. It was always fun to pop the bubble and see the smoke go off.
Kayla enjoying her special made drink.
We did not buy the unlimited dining plan this time. It was nice to not be tied down to eating a long lunch every day, but the food quality was definitely different for lunch, but the quick grab and gos were nice. The main dining room for dinner wasn't too bad though. We were really lucky because we wanted to eat dinner at 5:30pm and anytime dinner doesn't start until 6:30pm. They had an extra table and let us in.
For dinner in the main dining room we got lobster and our waiter and assistant waiter were really nice. The lobster was actually pretty good and I had a apple cobbler for dessert that was really good too.
After dinner we went to the Aquadome and saw them filming a promo there. We walked around the area and Kayla found a duck! She was so excited for it. We went over to the overlook area and it was pretty neat. The pods that they had were usually pretty busy and it was kinda hard to see if anyone was in them or not. Kayla called it her barbie dreamhouse and liked sitting in it.
Here is the inside of the pods. The whole overlook area gave us Norwegian Bliss vibes.
Kayla hid a duck in a very sneaky spot. It was there for a few days.
Pictures of the overlook area.
More pictures of the bar area
Afterwards, we went to the ice skating show. It was based on stars and the elements. I thought that it was brilliant and a really neat show. Kayla wasn't overly impressed by it though, and it was a little too grown up for her. After the show, we tried to drop her off at Adventure Ocean and she tried running away and trying to escape from going inside. She cried her eyes out saying that she didn't want to be left there and that she wanted to stay with us. But we showed her around a bit and introduced her to the teachers and she felt better about it. They gave us a phone incase they needed to call us, but she was ok.
We stopped at the 1400 bar and our bartenders got us a few drinks. The drink I got there was pretty strong and I started to feel the alcohol a bit. We went down to the casino and blew through $100 each pretty quickly. We barely hit any bonus or even get any money at all. So that was our last time donating there. We headed over to the piano bar and had a BUNCH of drinks. We had a fantastic time that night. It was so much fun. We were there for a while and we let a guy standing against the wall (Jason) join our table. We all had a really good night.
Here's my drunk self taking a picture after going to the bathroom because I was in such a good mood. We grabbed some pizza at Sorrentos and the 1400 bar again. We were both pretty drunk and it was 12:45am and we figured Kayla had been in bed hours ago...
Nope... we went to the kids club and she was up running around, wide awake! She goes I'm not tired at all! And we were blown away! She had won an octopus from the kids club for good behavior and she was proud as a peacock over it. So we ended up going back to the 1400 bar with her and they made a fuss over her and got her a Shirley temple with a bubble. They called us the Princess People. Once we got back to our room, we all fell asleep pretty easily, but the next day she did NOT want to get up. She was sleepy and a crabby girl haha.
Once we got up and going we went to the pools for the day. We were in the main big pool, the Cove pool pictured here, and the hot tubs. Kayla finally liked being a hot tub for once. My bathing suit bottom made a big bubble from the jets and she thought it was so funny trying to get my bubbles.
Such a happy girl! Kayla and daddy got a few minutes to swim and hang out together and I hopped on a few waterslides. I wanted to try all of them at least once just so that I could say that I went on them. I was a little disappointed that you need at least two people to go on the tube rides and they have weight restrictions. I tried hopping on with two older guys, but we were above the weight limit. The one guy was really nice and let me go with him and his buddy didn't ride it.
We ate at the aquadome for lunch, but the portions there weren't big enough for me. Kayla was happy with her sized mac and cheese though. While we were grabbing something to eat, Cody was talking with the piano bar guy in the pool. Cody said that the guy was really full of himself and talked down about Emily. He was like yeahhh I like to hire young hot chicks in their 20s because I know all the oldies and they know the more current stuff. And then he was kind of critiquing her... so after that I was not a fan of him. I guess he's the director of the piano bar and helped bring the concept to Royal.
Playing around in chill island.
Such a nice addition.
We went to the 7pm aquashow and Kayla fell asleep at the same point when we first watched the show! I guess she was not impressed with the robot/"star wars" inspired portion of the show. I was shocked that she fell asleep twice... I guess this wasn't her favorite aquashow. After the show, we had to wake her up to go to Hooked for dinner. She did not want to get up and was a little crabby during dinner. But other than her being crabby... I LOVED Hooked! The food was delicious and it's definitely my type of place to eat on vacation. I'd say that it's a close tie between it and Chops as my favorite restaraunt in their fleet. We got coconut shrimp, oysters (which I wasn't a fan of), and crab cakes for appetizers. Then I got lobster, salmon, and shrimp for my dinner and Cody got duel lobster tails. It was a very good dinner, and I can't wait to go back on the Symphony... we'll probably book it a few times. After dinner, we dropped Kayla off at the kids club. Girlfriend had FOMO on this cruise and was not happy to be dropped off again. I eventually talked her into it, and while I was talking to her Cody wandered off and I lost him for a while. I ran into him at the 1400 bar. My favorite drink was the first song.
We went to the Point and Feather for a bit to listen to the guy playing live music, and then we went to the 11:30pm show of the piano bar. And Cody's comments from earlier about Tim kicked in and I realized I was not a fan of him, but I did like Emily. I hope that she's doing well playing besides him. Around 1am, we went to Adventure Ocean to pick up Kayla and thought for sure that she'd be asleep because she fell asleep earlier.. but nope... we get there and they go... "Kayla's invisible... I wonder where she is??" And I'm like you silly goose! She's up and at it... and playing tricks on us. She was wide awake as could be and was like I'm not tired at all haha. I wish she'd been like that at Disney World for the Christmas party! Nope there she fell asleep by 10pm. When we got to our room she was very excited to see the towel monkey that was hanging up.
The next day, the ship wasn't able to dock at Costa Maya because it was too windy. The crew was calling it "Costa Maybe" because the ship already hasn't been able to dock there several times I guess because it gets so windy there... good to know for future reference. But our day became an extra sea day instead which was a bummer because we weren't planning on getting off anyway and we were looking forward to a less crowded ship.. but oh well. Obviously we had a late night so we were all sleepy and didn't really get out and going to the pool deck until 11am but that was fine. Kayla and I ate lunch at the windjammers which was pretty good. Kayla and I were headed to the cloud 17 pool, but then she spotted Cody in the hot tub at the swim and tonic pool (which has the swim up bar). So we hung out with him around there for a bit. Around 2pm, she was tired and wanted a break. She said that she wanted to go back to our room and watch her ipad. I told her that she could only watch it at the kids club... so she went there for a few hours. I met back up with Cody and we went to the milkshake area.
The milkshakes weren't covered in our drinking plan.... which is ridiculous to me. But rootbeer floats were so we each grabbed one of those. Afterwards, I went to go on a few more waterslides that I hadn't been on yet. I only got on 1 though because the longs were kinda long and I didn't want it to take up all my free time. So I met back up with Cody and we went to the Frozen lime and coconut which I thought was a really cool concept, and then we hung out in the comfy chairs by the cloud 17 area for a half an hour or so.
Afterwards, I ran to get Kayla and took her to the puppet show in the kids area. I'm pretty sure it was the same puppet show that we saw on the Oasis... if not the same, it was VERY similar. But Kayla enjoyed it.
After the puppet show we made a pit stop to the Surfside area to ride the carousel a few times...
And to get a tattoo on her arm.
Unicorn.
She absolutely loved this play area on the ship and came to it all the time.
Another cool seat on the carousel.
Flamingo!
We stopped at the 1400 bar so that she could say hi to her bartender friends. She had given some of them a few of her ducks so she was really in their good graces. We got her Sorrentos pizza for dinner and then went outside to take a few pictures. We were right by the track that goes around the ship and she was ALL about walking around the track... she walked two miles!
After running around a bit, we dropped her back off at Adventure Ocean.
Cody and I went to Izumi hibachi for the night. We LOVE hibachi on cruise ships. It's always such good food and the show is always great. We always have such fun at it. I always like to go at least once. It was a slow night for us after dinner, there weren't really any shows going on and the piano bar had the night off. We went to the Schooner bar for a few minutes. While we were sitting there, I decided to put a duck out in a semi-obvious spot to see how long it would be there for... I looked around to make sure that there wasn't anyone watching me, and I'd say within a 30-60 seconds a big group of kids ran over and snatched that duck up! That's how fast they were going! No wonder poor little Kayla could barely find any.
Since it was a slow night, we decided to just go and pick Kayla up. We went to the 1400 bar for a few minutes. They made her a special little drink, and she was very excited about her bubble on top of it.
Having some of her drink.
Getting ready to pop daddy's bubble.
There it goes...
We ended up calling it a night early, and heading back to our room. Here is Kayla with the few ducks that she had found so far.
After not being able to dock in Costa Maya the previous day... almost EVERYONE got off the next day at Cozumel. So yippee!! We had the ship all to ourselves basically. It actually kinda felt weird in the surfside pool because there were two lifeguards working and it was just Kayla in the pool... so I felt very watched haha. At first kayla didn't want to come here and go on the slides... which was crazy because she ended up loving it there!
We were in these pools from 11am - 5pm. She was hopping between swimming with me and going on the slides. We got to lunch at surfside bites so we didn't even have to leave the area which was really nice. She actually made friends with a couple of the little girls in the area too and were running around with them. She made one little friend named, Miley, and had fun playing with her.
Since we had the area to ourselves we did a little photo shoot!
Coming down the slide.
So much fun!
She always covered her eyes right away when coming down the slide to get the water out of them.
Weeee!!!!
Splash!!
Happy girl!
My little gymnastics girl.
Happy girl! Cody and I switched off and on in the area. He'd hang with her for a bit, and then I ran up and finished going on the last of the waterslides I hadn't been on yet. I kind of like water slides, but they aren't my favorite. I can definitely take or leave them, but I have FOMO and like trying things at least once... so I'm glad I went on all of them.
After swimming all day, we went and got dressed before dinner to take some pictures. Kayla and I wore our matching mommy and me dresses.
My cute baby girl!
We actually had the Royal Caribbean photographer take our pictures for us. They are SO expensive to buy. They don't let you take a screenshot either, but Cody was able to take a picture of them from my phone onto his. I don't want them printed, so just having them to look at is fine by me.
My sweetness!
Cool kid!
Family picture by the Pearl.
Our own picture of her in the Pearl. It's so big that you can hardly see her.
Kayla and mommy picture!
Mommy and Kayla! My girl!
More girl Pearl pictures.
Our mini photoshoot in our matching dresses. :)
My sweetie.
Outside pictures. We ran into the people we boarded the ship with here (I swear we saw them every day... there are some people that your just jive with) and they were the ones to take this picture for us. I swear on our next cruise I am going to make it a point to watch the sunset one night! I fell like I always miss it on every cruise I've ever bee on.
A few more of all of us.
The Pearl was such an "Iconic" spot, wouldn't you say.... That's why we decided to our most of our family pictures there. It's original to Icon and isn't on any other ship... so why not. After pictures we went to Chops for dinner. Chops is always great.
After dinner we dropped Kayla off at the kids club and we went to the Piano Bar. It was PACKED! Look at all the people that couldn't fit into the venue and that were standing outside. We only stayed there for a few minutes because we couldn't get a seat inside. It was fine because we had the comedy club booked for the night away. We were talking with the workers there and they were saying what a big hit the piano bar was on Icon. The comedy show was pretty good. I thought that all of the comedians were pretty funny.
Afterwards, we headed back to the Piano Bar, but around midnight the kids club called us and said that Kayla wanted us to pick her up. Cody volunteered to go get her and he said that she seemed fine, but she was the only kid there. He felt like the workers probably didn't want to stay for just one kid and called us to get her. So he had to go back to the room an hour early and I stayed at the Piano Bar and had fun watching them.
The next day we were back at the surf side area swimming and going on the slide. We went on the carousel and had lunch in the surfside area. It really worked nicely for us having food options by the kids pool area.
I took Kayla to the 12:30pm kids ice skating show. It had lots of fantasy characters that were looking for something that was missing from the king of the kingdom so that he could have his royal ball.
Kayla loved when Cinderella came on...she was his favorite. And then she refused to cheer for the big bad wolf because he was the bad guy.
It turns out that humpty dumpty's invitation to the ball got lost in the mail so he hid the object everyone was looking for. Kayla kept saying... Humpty Dumpty did it!?!?!
Here we are at the show together. She really enjoyed it a lot more than the adult version that we saw. They only had the kid version on one day or I think she probably would have went to it a few more times.
Kayla found her friend Miley and we went up to the 15th floor to go swimming in the main pool. Her friend had googles and was swimming around with them, and Kayla seemed a little bit jealous and wanted some googles too. So maybe for her next cruise she'll have some.
We ate dinner at the Windjammer tonight because we didn't have a lot of time to sit down and eat before going to the 6:30pm showing of the Wizard of Oz. We were blown away by the food in the windjammer.... All you can get lobster!? They had steak, short ribs, and baked potatoes. For the free food option I was pretty impressed. There were some people taking a whole plate of lobster. And the crazy part was that in the main dining room it said that they charged you extra for an additional lobster. Who would have thought they'd be on the buffet in the windjammer! This was the last dress up night, and I was really surprised by it.
The Wizard of Oz was a hit. Kayla was a little nervous whenever the wicked witch came out onto the stage, but she did really good sitting through the 2 hour show. She had lots of questions for me throughout the performance about different things that were happening. She was definitely paying attention and into it. It was a really good production... a little bit more modern than the original, but the story was basically the same. We all enjoyed it.
We went to the 1400 bar to say high to Kayla's bartenders. Here's Eka taking Kayla outside for a minute to look for ducks. Kayla hid one for her down by the casino entrance and found one for herself too.
I told Kayla that the Disco party was about to start up and that there would be a lot of people and that it would be loud in the area... and she was like NOPE!!! She's like take me to the kids club! So we dropped her off and then headed to the disco party on the promenade.
I always love the disco party! It's one of my favorites that Royal has. So Cody and I went and we danced around and had fun together.
The cruise director was one of the macho men and he was really strutting his stuff and it was funny.
He's in the cop outfit haha. After the disco party we headed up to the piano bar. We were drinking a bit and just had a really good and fun night together.
We picked Kayla up around 12:45am and my little night owl was up and she'd had a great time at the kids club that night. I don't know why... but I was shocked watching her run down the Promenade wide awake at nearly 1am... We stopped to get some late night pizza before heading back to our room.
Next day we were all tired and had to force Kayla up at 10am. We made our way off the ship to Coco Cay for our only stop off of the ship. Kayla was crabby all the way down there so Cody split off from us pretty quickly as I tired to cheer her up. When we found Cody again, we saw some baby chicks under the chair in front of us.
Kayla was really into looking at them and thought they were so cute.
Then started our mommy and Kayla day. Cody was off on his own, so we tired to go in the main pool at Coco Cay, but it wasn't heated so we didn't stay in it very long. We went to the splashpad and water slide area. This was a big hit with Kayla and we had fun playing there for a bit. Then we grabbed lunch on the island... which honestly I'm not overly impressed with. The food is only ok on the island, but Kayla did enjoy the fruit that she was eating. Cody did catch up with us for a minute for lunch before deciding to go back on the ship for the day.
Kayla and I went to the beach for a bit. She wanted to build a sandcastle. So we played in the sand for a bit, but she didn't have a shovel or a pail. Since we've gotten home, some of her sand toys are in our garage and she keeps pointing to them and telling me that we need to bring them for our next cruise so that she can play in the sand.... Noted girlfriend.
The water was very calm on the island and she was cool with getting into the ocean for really the first time. She didn't like the ocean in Myrtle Beach because the waves scared her... but here she was fine. There were tiny little fish in the water though and she was NOT having it. She did not want them anywhere near her haha.
It was so bright out that I couldn't really see to get pictures... this was supposed to be a picture of our sandcastle that we made, but it didn't come out very well.
They had some floating mats in the water and Kayla was very excited to try to hop into one. While we were here, we realized that there were some barracudas in the water over by the rocks not to far from us. I guess they were eating the little fish in the area. Royal Caribbean has a netting that keeps most sea creatures out of the bay area, but I guess they skinny enough to slip in.
Playing on the water mat.
My girl!
After the beach area for a bit, we went back to the splash pad/water slide area. I wanted to spend some time here because I didn't feel like the kids area on our ship was that good, and this felt fun and exciting.
We ran through the splashpad area being silly with each other and had fun.
We also raced down the 3 slides in the middle, and went down the blue/orange slide together a bunch of times. It was a very fun day there together.
Picture together in the splash area.
Big girl doing the slides on her own.
Happy girl in the water.
Going down the slides.
We walked up to the top of the pirate ship to try to get a good picture with our ship in the background.
Mama and baby love.
Picture of the two ships in port.
Kayla on the plank on the pirate ship. We decided to leave Coco Cay a little bit early to say goodbye to our favorite spots on the ship. It's a bummer that our Coco Cay day was our last day of our cruise. My only gripe with Coco Cay is that they made you get ALL the way back onto the ship before you could drop off your towels. They were so heavy and awful to carry back!!
Since it was our last day, we decided to go say goodbye to Surfside. Kayla went on the slides for a bit.
I got one last Sailer's Delight which was my favorite drink from the Lemon Post bar. She also got an ice cream cone and one last tattoo on her arm. We will definitely miss this area on our next cruise, and we both enjoyed it here a lot. On our last cruise, a nice older lady left a Cinderella duck on our door for Kayla, and Kayla kept bringing it up and hoped that a duck would be waiting for her at our door again. Well while waiting for an elevator, a little boy came over and gave her a Cinderella duck... and it made her WHOLE night. She was so excited and she goes someone gave me ANOTHER Cinderella duck!! She's like seeeee... I TOOOOOLD you that people like to give me Cinderella ducks. I ended up dropping Kayla off in the room with Cody and went off for an hour to do my own goodbyes to the ship. I went to get my last crepe... that was one of my favorite additions to the ship! They were so tasty! I got one more frozen blue hawaiian and then I went to relax in the Cloud 17 area as we sailed away. It was nice to relax with a drink for a few minutes. I had been wanting to come to the Cloud 17 area all week, and just hadn't really made it over there. The seats were really comfortable and nice.
I switched out with Cody and he went walking around and ended up in the aqaudome area for the sunset. I was super jealous! He messaged us, but I got it late and Kayla and I missed it.
His pictures of it looked beautiful though. That's it... I'm officially putting see a sunset on a cruise on my bucket list. Seems like I'm alway getting ready for dinner or eating dinner and miss it on every cruise.
We had dinner at the Windjammer and I will say that I was actually impressed with the Windjammer. I thought that the food there was better than what I expected. I liked the quick grab and go option and that we didn't have to take hours out of our day to eat lunch and dinner every day. We have the unlimited dining package on our next cruise so we'll have to balance it better than going somewhere every day. We took Kayla to say goodbye to her bartenders and Kayla found a few ducks... finally. When we were walking away, Kayla goes... they all really liked me and they are going to miss me. And I'm like yeah I bet they will honey.
Cody and I headed to the piano bar... I will say that I will miss this venue the most! It was our favorite and we had a lot of fun there. Even though by the end of the cruise it did start to feel a little old... we went to nearly all their shows so we knew all the gimmicks and jokes, and a lot of the songs were the same most nights... but it was still a really good time. We had lots of fun there. There's nothing like going to a fun venue like that and both being able to drink and have fun.
We finished our night going to the main comedy show in the main theater which is how we like to close out all of our cruises. Afterwards, the kids club called us and let us know that Kayla had fallen asleep so we decided to just call it a night. The next morning was nice, because our flight was a little later in the day so we ate breakfast and lounged around the ship before getting off.
I will say that Icon of the Seas was a great ship. I'd say that it's probably my favorite Royal Caribbean ship. I really liked the concept of the Surf Side area. We did spend a lot of time there, and the Lemon Post bar was really fun. I liked how they had mommy and me drinks... even though Kayla didn't have too many of them. We felt that the Piano Bar addition was a huge win... and it was our favorite venue hands down. We spent so many nights there. We also really liked how well the ship seemed to flow. The 6th floor being fully open and able to be walked across... along with some strategic escalators and the destination elevators made such a big difference with the congestion and ability to be able to navigate the ship. I loved how uncrowded the elevators were when we went on them. The Aquadome area was also really neat, and I thought a good addition. I loved being able to stop by and get a crepe every now and then!! Chill Island was fun for us, and we hung out there a bit, and I also appreciated thrill island even though we don't love waterslides. Things I didn't love about Icon was that there was no quiet Solarium area for adults. I didn't love their adult only "Vegas Style" pool party area, where the pool seems really shallow and small. I also thought that the little kids waterslides/splashpad left a lot to be desired. Also the Central Park area on this ship seemed really small and not as much to it. I also didn't like how hard it was to find ducks on this ship. I don't know if that will be our experience on all ships going forward because it's gotten more popular or not. But overall, I would say that this was an incredible vacation for us. I say this to everyone... cruises are such a great blend of family time and adult time. We love getting to spend time with Kayla during the day, but then having the safe kids club at night makes such a difference. We've got at least 3 more cruises booked so far so we aren't slowing down any time soon!
