November 2024 we were heading to Disney for a couple of days and then a back to back cruise on the Utopia of the Seas. Basically... my dream trip!! What could be better than doing theme parks for a few days and then going on a cruise afterwards?
We got up at 5am to get to our early flight! We love the first flights of the day because there is less chance of delay and we get to our destination early. Unfortunately, I had to work on this travel day. I was working in the airport, during the flight, and in the car to the hotel for a half day.
Our first stop was Miller's Ale House! Love our zingers!!
Happy girls!!
Even with eating lunch we were still early for our hotel check in but we were able to check right into the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress. Getting our Hyatt credit card was the best thing we did. We didn't have to pay for our stay and had a room at this fantastic hotel. They also treat us really good and had our room ready for us early. We paid for valet parking which felt very VIP and was great after going to the resorts.
Kayla loved the parrot that they had in the lobby area.
As we were checking in, there was a family checking out and they Pixie Dusted Kayla with a Mickey/Minnie balloon. She was sooo excited! I saw the family in the elevator and Kayla was like "I want a balloon." and I was just about to tell her that we'd get one at the parks when they stopped by us to give it to her. We were so delighted!
We went to go swimming but the water wasn't heated so we only swam for a little while. I actually took a little nap on the loungers outside.
The temperature wasn't bad out, but the water was a bit cold. Kayla was determined though!
We came back in and got ready to go to Disney Springs for the night. We went to Gideon's cookies which I've heard about FOREVER! The hype is real! People wait in line for HOURS for these cookies. Sometimes you have to enter a virtual que and wait hours before you can get in line for the cookies, but we got really lucky and there was a walk up line that was 15 mins long. We got 3 cookies and a slice of cake from them.
The inside is actually kinda creepy/spooky vibe. Here is what the cookies look like.
The cake slice was delicious. We all really liked it a lot.
The cookies were good too. I don't know if they are 2-3 hours wait good of cookies, but they definitely weren't bad.
My chocolate chip cookie. We also walked around a bit and Kayla and I went into the Disney store. She selected a bunch of things to put on her "christmas list" and we also bought a travel disney guess who game. We've actually had a lot of fun playing that game.
We met Dave and Erin at Homecooking for dinner and it was pretty good. Kayla was sooo tired at that point and she was nearly falling asleep. But she perked up when we went on a Christmas tree scavenger hunt. We were lucky that the tree scavenger hunt started up just that night, and we got through most of the trees before Kayla fell asleep. Unfortunately, this was all that we got to see our Dave and Erin because they were going to Vegas the next day for a weekend trip... so they just missed getting to hang out with us.
Saturday was our Hollywood Studio and Epcot day! We had originally thought about going to Universal this time instead, but it was really expensive to go to Universal and it was Jersey week and all of the New Jersey people were supposed to be going to Universal that day... so we decided to pivot to go back to Disney after all. Happy birthday to me!! This was my first experience using Multi-pass. We did pretty good with our times! Initially I had a noon LL for Alien Swirl Saucers, but upon modifying I was able to get us a 8:30am selection time which was right when the park opened! So when we came in, we walked right to Alien Swirl Saucers. We were so happy and so ready for our Disney day!!
Next stop was Slinky Dog Dash! I wasn't able to get a LL for this one, and it had a 140 minute wait time posted at opening, but we ended up waiting an hour for it. The wait went pretty quickly... Kayla colored and watched her phone and I kept rapidly checking for LLs for us. I could have gotten Toy Story Mania which was originally sold out for later in the day, rocking roller coaster, and tower of terror... but they didn't line up with our Epcot day and weren't out priority so we skipped them this trip. I was searching like crazy for LL's for HS and Epcot! I was refresh-refreshing trying to get stuff. And I honestly did really good throughout the day. I think next time that it would really be worth it to buy standby skipper though. I spent a lot of time refreshing and looking for LLs. It would have been nice to have paid to have had that done for us, and it's not that expensive.
Kayla was SOOOO excited for Slinky Dog Dash! She had been waiting forever to ride this ride! Honestly, this was a big reason why we did park hopper tickets vs just going to Epcot for the day.
Family pic!
Of course she choose daddy to ride with.
Time to get on!!!
Yippee!!! She loved it!! Can't wait to go on it again.
Oops! Daddy's hand blocked her haha. And obviously I was trying to record her! Lol Right after this ride we went on Mickey and Minnie's runaway railroad. It's another ride that Kayla has been watching and saying that she really wanted to ride... but when we got there she was nervous and almost didn't want to go on it. We did talk her onto it and she seemed ok with it.
Next we waited in line for Toy story mania for 45 mins. It's too bad we couldn't take advantage of a LL for this one, but it is what it is when you're only doing a morning/half day in a park. At least the que is fun! We played I spy during most of our wait looking around and finding things.
This is still one of my favorite rides! Cody went by himself and Kayla and I played together.
The line for Olaf was really short... only 10 mins so we decided to hop in his line.
Our bad luck was that Olaf took a break right before we were going to meet him so we had to wait a few extra minutes. We then ran over to Cody and ate our lunch. We grabbed some hot dogs quickly and ate before going to the Frozen show.
We had a 12:05pm LL to watch this show. It's such a unique and fun show!
I always love watching this show. It's so funny and good. Kayla really likes Frozen too. After the show, we went for a potty break and got Cody a coffee.
Then we decided to hop on the skyliner to Epcot! This was my first experience on the skyliner and it was so cool! We got to go by some of the Disney resorts and we hopped around until we got to the international pavilion at Epcot. Kayla loved pointing stuff out as we were going... it also had a "guided tour" type of thing where on the way to Epcot they pointed out stuff to you as you were going over it. Kayla also liked how most of the cars had a Disney character wrap on them and she loved pointing out the different characters as we passed them.
View towards the Beach Club I believe.
Once we got into Epcot, we saw Daisy standing out to meet with people. We were unlucky again and she went for her break right before we met with her. We were almost going to leave but Kayla wanted to wait for her...and luckily she came back!
Girl picture!
Then we kinda just walked around Epcot getting some snacks/drinks. We got the bao bun in Japan which I REALLY liked! It was very tasty. We got caramel popcorn in Germany which I heard people raving about, but I wasn't super impressed with it. We got pot stickers and boba tea in China which was tasty.
After walking around a bit, we made it to the last Encanto show of the day at 3pm. Kayla was starting to get a little tired at this point and didn't really want to get up to dance with the other kids.
This was a new show that they added recently and it was high energy and fun to watch. Afterwards, we cashed in on our 3:50pm LL for soaring. I love this ride!! Kayla was really excited for the Tinkerbell at the end of the ride... she remembered it from our last trip. The cast member told her about it, and she was hoping to see that girl on this trip too... but alas... we did not. Kayla wasn't a very big fan of the fireworks at the end of the ride. But soaring is always great!
Right after we ran to our 4:30pm LL for Nemo and friends which is a cute ride. Kayla really liked this shark and kept wanting to play in it! But we had to keep on moving...
Kayla really wanted to meet Elsa and Anna. The wait wasn't too bad to meet them, but we were with a group with a ton of rowdy babies and it was a bit much waiting by them all.
But it was worth it to see her girls! This was on the top of Kayla's "to do" list.
Elsa!
Family picture!
This led us to perfect timing to go use our 5:50pm LL for Frozen. However, when we got up to it.. it was BROKEN down! This happened to us last time too!! We decided to go into the bakery next door and got treats and when we came back out it was up again. We loved it! It was a very cute ride.
The ball is so pretty at night! Love the lights that they added to it.
We got a mobile order from the smoke house and then I went in line to get Kayla a hot dog. Cody watched the Magic! concert while I waited in lines for stuff. It took me pretty much the whole half an hour concert to wait in lines for our stuff so I pretty much missed it.
I had heard really good things about Epcot's fry flight... so I waited in line FOREVER for them! I swear I was there for like 30-40 minutes waiting for these fries. And honestly, the fires were only ok. I didn't really like that them much. Kayla was pretty sleepy at this point and fell asleep for a while in her stroller.
I was waiting and waiting for Cody to get off of Guardians of the Galaxy. I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to use our ILL for it because I was waiting so long for him. At first, I thought that he must have gone through the wrong line... but when I went on it, it took me about a half an hour to get onto it through all the preshows and everything. This ride is amazing!! Such a good one to ride! It does take time though.
While I was riding the ride, Cody and Kayla went to the Moana area. At this point in the night, I was getting worried because my phone was critically endanger of dying. Even with my extra charger... I was charging both Kayla and my devices and it just wasn't lasting.
Luckily, I was able to meet up with Cody and Kayla. Cody was trying to get back towards the Skyliner so that we didn't have to wait in line for it at the end of the night... so we walked as we watched the firework show. I would have liked to have stopped and watched it more, but next time we'll do that. Once the fireworks were over, we were in prime position to hop onto the skyliner. The ride back on it wasn't nearly as fun as the ride to Epcot. It took quite a bit of time to get back with all the transferring and it was too dark to really see anything. Hollywood Studios was doing the first Jollywood Night of the year that night so HS was hopping still.
The next morning, we were up to rope drop Magic Kingdom. Here we are on the first ride of the day... the Monorail! Kayla spotted the castle!
We headed right for Big Thunder Mountain and were able to ride it 3 times with little to no wait. Kayla really liked it! We just kept running right back in line.
It was bright today at Magic Kingdom! I was sooo excited to have the Photo Pass for the day! I loooove getting the magic shots and taking pictures wherever the Disney photographers are at! After BTM, we went on Aladdin. It was the earliest LL that I could get. We rode it one time, and then the second time we were able to use our 9:50am LL, and I grabbed a 6:15pm Peter Pan LL. Kayla was really excited to see Jasmine walking around the area. Kayla was trying to stalk her to say Hi/get a picture... but she was slippery and kept disappearing on us.
Afterwards, we went to Bibbidi Boppidi Boutique. This was been on my bucket list FOREVER! And the experience did not disappoint! It was amaaazing! Months later, Kayla still wants to play boutique and she'll come over and call my name and take me for my makeover. This experience was absolutely worth it! And another thing that made me sooo excited was that I was able to grab us Cinderella Royal Table dinner reservations while Kayla was getting made over for 5:45pm! Dreams come true!
First a fairy godmother in training came to help Kayla pick out her dress. She got to walk around to all of the dresses and pick which one she liked the best. Coming into the appointment, she was set on being Elsa because she doesn't have an Elsa dress. But once she saw the beautiful princess Aurora dress she was set on it. The only bad part was that they didn't have it in 5T... they only had it in 4T. She was able to fit into it, but it's not going to last her very long at home.
They took her hair down and let her change in front of the mirror.
Here she is in her dress! Once she had her dress on the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella popped into the mirror to talk to her and give her well wishes.
Next we sat down in the dress waiting room and waited for her stylist to come over. The girl walked in and called for her name and walked her over to the castle to get her makeover.
There they go into the castle!
So fun!!
They started combing and styling her hair. The girl showed her "jellyfish gel" from Ariel to make her hair hold and look pretty.
They put it into her hair and started styling it. Kayla picked out that she wanted a Tiara on.
Getting her hair and makeup done! They also had photographers coming around to take pictures of all the girls too.
Happy girl!
Getting her Tiara on!
Neutral reaction to the reveal.
Happy little princess!! She looked so different with her hair done up like that!
Her reaction to seeing herself. :)
We went across the castle and they had a photoshoot area. I love this picture! It was one of my favorites.
Sleeping beauty book to match her Aurora dress.
My pretty girl!
This was another one of my favorites showing off her whole dress.
Magic shot.
This was a bucket list item for me... something I've always wanted to do. I think you can see the joy on my face reflected pretty well.
Kayla and daddy
Family photo with the princess!
Park pictures!
It was super sunny out!
The photographer told her to close and her eyes and to open them when she told her to... but all the pictures she took were with her eyes closed. You can see the green stands set up behind us, they were filming the Christmas day parade in the park the day that we were there. Those were the filming stations that were recording the performers.
This one turned out ok.
My pretty princess in front of the castle.
Magic shot!!!
Love it!
Happy!! After some pictures it was time for some more rides. We had really good wait times... about 10 mins for the teacups and barnstormer, and then we had a LL at 1:15pm for Winnie the Pooh.
One of the princess lines weren't too long either so we popped right in and walked into see Rapunzel.
And then we got to see Tiana.
Annual teacup picture! After riding, I ran over to the blue umbrella customer service person because with our CRT reservation we now had a conflict with our Peter Pan LL for later that night. I almost just dropped it, but then I thought that I'd just ask them for the heck of it and see what they could do for us. I went over and told them that we got to do BBB today and that while I was there that I was sooo lucky to be able to score the CRT reservation, but that it conflicted with the LL that I had booked earlier in the day... and I was amazed and delighted that they waved the timing factor for us and gave us an any time pass to ride Peter Pan! I was SOOO happy!! That freed us up for also being able to book another lightning lane. Disney Pixie Dust!! I was able to book us a LL for It's a Small World for right after the parade.
But riding all these rides and stopping at the blue umbrella had us pressed for time to get to the parade. It was PACKED that day! Since they were filming that day for the Christmas parade they were performing the Christmas parade which they normally only do at the Christmas party or the week of Christmas which a lot of people with annual passes are blocked out for. So this was like the only day that a lot of people could see the parade for free... so even Frontierland was PACKED! We were 3 rows deep to see the parade. Kayla was trying to stand up on something but the cast members made her get down. Cody was not thrilled. She didn't have a great view of the parade which is probably my one regret of the night. She really enjoys the parade and it probably would have been worth it to take some time to wait for a spot for it, but who knew how busy it would be? Looking back it makes a lot of sense why it was so crowded.
She still gave the characters her heart sign though! Kayla was also in character as a princess and kept showing me how to do a proper princess wave.
Hi Mickey! When we go with Becky, Abby, and Bobby we will prioritize getting a spot on main street for sure. It was a mad house after the parade because it was so crowded trying to walk through. We were able to go on it's a small world and then walk right onto Peter Pan! Yay!! I will say that I really do enjoy it's a small world, but Peter Pan is just not worth the hype to me. Kayla didn't really enjoy it that much, and I don't think we'd prioritize it in the future unless the group we're with really wants to go on it.
Kayla and daddy Dumbo picture!! Another lightning lane that I booked at 1:30pm and was able to snag a 2:20pm return time.
Heading to Ariel's Grotto! We were going to do Enchanted Tales with Belle, but her line was a bit too long for us and Ariel's was shorter so we decided to meet her instead. Even though Story Time with Belle is one of my favorites!
She had a 20 min wait so we decided to pop in to see her.
Kayla thanked her for the jelly fish gel for her hair. Afterwards we went on the Little Mermaid right with a 4:15pm LL.
Afterwards we had some time before dinner so we decided to take a few more pictures.
Silly girl!
Family picture. You can definitely see the filming gear behind us.
At this point, daddy was ready to grab a coffee so Kayla and I hung out on the hub grass area. Kayla wanted to play Bippitty Boppitty Boutique. It was adorable! She called my name and took my hand and pretended to give me my princess make over! We have done this so many times now at home too! We had a really good time playing her for a few minutes with each other and it was a very happy moment for us.
Kayla was so excited to see who the mystery character was going to be in this magic shot. It takes a few minutes for the magic ones to show up.
Picture out front!
Happy!
Magic shot!
Love it!
This one is my profile picture and the one in our living room.
Another nice shot.
Greeting card picture!
We were taking pictures by the tree while daddy had to go potty.
He ran back over right at the end of us taking pictures and hopped in with us haha.
Next it was time for another bucket list item for me!! Cinderella's Royal Table!!!!!
We walked in and got our picture with Cinderella right away. There were quite a few people waiting in the room, and before we could even sit down they called us up to go to our table. We walked up the winding staircase to a chamber to eat.
The first princess that we met was Snow White.
Then Ariel.
Then Merida.
And Jasmine.
We were so happy to be here! Cody liked it, but was doing it to humor us more so. But we got really lucky because they shot off some fireworks while they were filming and we got to see fireworks from inside of the castle which was a neat experience!
Sooooo many thumbs up!
I felt so lucky that we were able to get this reservation and so happy to do this!
Knife fight!
Some of the scenery.
Towards the end of dinner they do a little speech about making wishes and have everyone make a wish on your wishing star that they give you. Made me teary eyed! After this we face timed my mom and showed her the area and thanked her! She bought this for us as a birthday dinner us all of us. It was actually the day after my birthday but was still cool.
To be honest, I was overly impressed with our dessert options. I didn't think they were all that great.
Kayla didn't like hers at all.
Cody's "cheese cake" was pretty neat though!
The whole hall!
Picture of us after dinner! This was such a special day! I loved that she was dressed up and that we got to come here. It is something that I have literally always wanted. Kayla did not disappoint either, she was in character of being a princess and showed me how a princess eats her food. She was very excited to be here too!
Picture with the stained glass.
After dinner, we stood off to the side of the castle in Liberty square to get a good spot. We were front row and waited for 30-45 minutes for the fireworks to start. We had a LL for Big Thunder Mountain and Tiana's for the later part of the night. So this standing spot was strategic. I wasn't sure how Kayla was going to do with the fireworks because in the past she's been scared and we were kinda close to them... but again, she did not disappoint. We told me, "Watch mommy... I'm controlling the fireworks with my princess powers." You know how some princesses can talk to animals and Elsa has ice magic? Well Kayla had firework magic! And after every good firework sequence she would look at me and ask me if I liked the show that she was putting on for me. It was sooo adorable!! She told me that she was doing all the color fireworks and her friends were doing all the white fireworks.
She said that she was lending her powers to Sarah, Maia, and Abigail so that they could help her put on the firework show. It was the most adorable thing ever!! I took a really cute video of her too!
Here she is pretending to do the firework show.
Here she is telling me that her friends were doing the show too.
After the fireworks we happily went on Big Thunder Mountain which is my favorite in the dark! And then it was time for Tiana's and Kayla really wasn't feeling it. It took a lot of persuasion to get her to agree to go on it. She was worried that her dress was going to get wet. I told her that I would be her human shield and would keep her from getting wet. Well... little did I know that they weighted down the boats and added more water to the ride since it was splash mountain so we did get slightly wet. Sitting in the back is definitely the way to go though. The people in the front row were drenched. I'm disappointed by Tiana's... but maybe riding it for the first time at dark didn't help. It just didn't seem like there was as much to look at in this version vs how much stuff they had in Splash Mountain. I don't want to be a hater, I'd like to go on it again in the summer and when I'm not so focused on a preschooler that's so concerned with getting wet.
Afterwards we closed out the night with Kayla's favorite! The 7 dwarf mine train ride! We actually got to ride it 3X's in a row. We went the first time at 9:30pm and used our lightning lane. The sign said that it was an hour wait, but we asked someone that we merged in line with and they said they only waited 20 mins. She we ran back in line and basically walked through the line!! We got RIGHT back on it within a few minutes. At 10pm though they took one of the trains off of the track, which took the ride from a walk on to a 20-25 minute wait. I think they do the purposely so people will buy the lightning lane at night.
Playing with the gems on our way in. We also played with the barrels too. Kayla absolutely loves all aspects of this ride. She says her favorite part is the heigh ho hill! She also likes the 7 dwarf cottage at the end of the ride too. Overall, we had an EXCELLENT day at Disney! We had such a good time and got to see and do so much stuff. I think that we really hit everything that was on my must do list, it would have been nice if we could see Enchanted Tales with Belle and met Minnie/Daisy, but hopefully we can do that next time!
The next day we were up at 7:30am to start getting packed and ready to go on our Utopia cruise! We had a smooth drive in and got to the ship right away. Check in was a breeze and we were right onto the ship within a few minutes. First thing, we stopped in Central Park to get our reservations and check out the area. Kayla was on the duck hunt immediately, but I told her people probably hadn't put the ducks out yet.
Next we went to go check into the kids club. It was absolutely amazing on this ship!! They had so many fun make believe/play areas! Here's the ice cream stand and the bookstore.
Here's the camper with a slide.
Here is the cafe! Kayla couldn't wait to get back in here to play later in the day.
Here is the big screen where they watch movies.
Checking out the bookstore!
Next stop was some ice cream.
Then we went to the playscape to play for a little bit.
Mmm first drink of the cruise. I got the peanut butter colada which was pretty good.
Kayla liked the slides, but she was sticking a bit to them.
After playing, we went to lunch at Chops which was good as usual.
Then our room was ready for us! Kayla loves these bunk beds. She's not going to know what to do when we don't have this setup on our next cruise. I love getting to unpack and have everything sorted for our trip.
Love this extra spacious balcony room. It works perfect for us.
Normally, I'm not a huge fan of Royal Caribbean's sail away parties, but this one was super exciting! They had lots of workers there pumping up the party scene. And with this being a B2B cruise... everyone was here for only a couple days so it was more of a party crowd. They had camera men putting people on the big screen. Kayla was shaking her booty and was all about trying to get on the big screen!
They did a song called Champagne shots and went around with a champagne that they poured into peoples mouths. They went around doing that for the whole song and went through a few bottles of champagne and that was pretty cool. We ended up out of the pool and into the big hot tub up top and watched from below. It was a cool vibe, and I actually enjoyed this sail away party.
After swimming for a while, we made our way to the climb area by the aquashow and Kayla made a little friend. Afterwards, we went to Hooked! My absolute favorite restaurant. I got a crab cake, mussels, and twin lobster tails. It was sooo good.
By this time, Kayla was ready for the kids club. She was excited to try it out. We went to the Mason Jar for a bit and saw her friends parents there and we talked to them a while. They were kindred spirits that loved to cruise and go to Disney.
Our main entertainment for the night was the ice skating show. It was a good show, but we were both exhausted. I was actually struggling to stay awake... but I swear it wasn't the shows fault haha. We even tried to go to the casino afterwards, but it was super crowded and we were gassed so we picked up Kayla and called it a night. It had been a long couple of days with Disney and then going all day for the cruise.
Kayla and I slept in until 10am the next day. Cody was up and wandering the ship. I went out around 10:25am for breakfast at the Solarium. It's limited menu there but it works good for me. We took Kayla to the kids club for like 45 mins and went to the Solarium. I liked the setup in the Solarium, and we were really happy that the pools were heated.
It is fully enclosed and temperature controlled in there. It was very comfortable and pleasant sitting in there. We went to pick Kayla back up and took her to the pools and the kiddie slides. I helped match make for her and she spent hours sliding and playing with a little girl.
Her friends family really wanted to go to the Effectors parade. I wasn't sure what that was and didn't think it would be too great, but boy was I wrong! It was actually super cool! It was more of a show than a parade. It had a storyline and a bunch of song numbers. It was really cool.
I was really glad that they talked us into coming to it.
One of the people.
The villian. Definitely worth going to. I'll have to pay attention to parade times in the future and check them out.
We went to Giovanni's that night for dinner. It's honestly not my favorite place, but Cody really enjoys the food there so I go for him.
Gionvanni's is very popular. They put it in a bigger venue on Utopia and got rid of Wonderland.
More of the area.
Tonight was the aquashow night! It was packed a half an hour early with a huge stand by line. And with good reason... the show was amazing! It honestly never gets old. I loved the 80s songs.
The guys came out on the bouncing line and I was like yaaay my favorite part!!
They are so incredible. It just amazes me how they can do those tricks on the wires.
At the end of their act, Kayla goes, "where's my favorite part?" and right on cue the aerial people came out. She's fascinated by them and loves watching that part. She was so excited when they came out.
The aquashow is her favorite!
Happy girl!
Yaaaay!!
This is her show rating.
Best show ever!
The whole cast.
Wow they even got a heart rating from her!
After the show, she headed back to the kids club for the night and we went to the Mason Jar. A country band was playing and it was packed. They went on break after a few songs so we went to the pub for a few minutes. We ended up going to the comedy show early and had some drinks there. The comedians were actually pretty funny this time. I'm used to "older people" magicians on Royal, but these guys were actually pretty good and did a bit of crowd work. It felt like you could maybe even go see their act again because they seemed to be improvising a lot. Aftwards, we went to the decades party. I really like the disco party but this one was cool before it had disco songs, 80s and 90s songs so it was my jam. I like to dance and was on the camera quite a bit. Cody's not much of a dancer though lol. We ended up back in the pub for the night for a few more songs before we went to get our little party animal.
Next morning, we had breakfast at the Mason Jar and tried a whole bunch of stuff. Their whole menu sounded delicious to me, but I ended up not liking a whole lot of it. The chicken and waffles were amazing though. Kayla was in a mood all day and wouldn't eat so that might have impacted my experience too. I tried taking her to the pools, but she was stuck on trying to find her little friend to play with but she was no where to be found. Eventually I got her to accept playing with me in the pool a bit and then to play in the kids slide area. It was kind of a rough day and I was itching for some alone time... so I took her to the kids club right at 2pm and got myself a drink!
I had 2.5 hours of wonderful time in the Solarium. I went in the hot tub, pool, and took a nap in one of the comfy loungers for about 45 mins. Not sure why the whole area doesn't have these loungers because it's enclosed, but these comfy seats were definitely coveted. Cody and I got a few drinks and hung out in the hot tub together too.
Sunset. :)
We had dinner at Chops tonight and took some pictures ahead of time.
Mommy and me dresses.
Kayla and daddy.
She looks so sweet!
Family picture.
My sweetie pie.
Selfie!
She loved coming back in at night to see her new towel animals. After dinner, Cody and I went around the ship listening to music at different venues. We definitely missed the piano bar. The mason jar was country music and it was just too small of a venue for the crowd. They had nice rocking chairs in there which is a nice vibe during the day, but it really took up the space for extra seating in there. We went to the casino afterwards, but didn't do too well so we decided to call it a night because we had Coco cay the next day.
Doing a back to back cruise meant that we got to do two days in Coco Cay! We got up and made our way out around 10am. We went to the pool but the water was COLD! It was not a heated pool and it did not make for a fun time swimming at Coco Cay at all. At first we were going to sit in the shade, but I quickly realized that wasn't going to work for Kayla and I. I had her diving sticks and pool toys to play with and we kept running in and out. Because the water was cold we were able to get front row spots pretty easily.
The water was cold in the kids slide/splash area too. But we did swim for a while because we were excited and we got lunch on the island which was alright. Kayla had a hot dog and fries and I got a hamburger, BBQ chicken and fries. Cody wasn't really with us much. He only stayed on the island for a little bit. He walked around, got lunch, and then went back to the ship around 11:30am. So it was Kayla and I together for most of the day.
The ships!
We love getting this pictures on the pirate ship.
Pirate cute picture!
We ended up going to the ocean area for a bit. The water was actually warmer there. We played with a friend that she knew from the kids club in the sand for a while. We did jump back into the pool to get the sand off of us, but decided to head back to the ship about an hour early. I finally found a spot on Coco cay to drop off dirty towels so you don't have to carry them back with you! Phew!! I have always hated having to do that.
When we got back to the ship, Kayla was done swimming for the day. She opted to hang out in the room with Cody for a bit and chill with her ipad. I decided to make my way to the Solarium and sit in the hot tubs a bit. I love people watching the people in the ship next to us. I love when it's a big ship and they wave back to you as one ship is leaving. I was excited to get to wave goodbye to Harmony on this trip.
Harmony was passing our side of the ship, so I went back to our room to wave it off and watch the sunset.
Sunset picture! Afterwards, we started getting ready for dinner. We took Kayla to the windjammer and then to the kids club tonight.
We ate dinner at the Mason Jar.
Mason Jar drink! We had dinner here and kind of felt the same as lunch time... it has a lot of potential but I just didn't feel like the food was that great there. The BBQ place on Oasis was the BOMB! This place was ok... we had the brisket and chicken pot pie. The serving size on the brisket was huge.
Afterwards, we had a bit of bad luck trying to find live music. The pub said it started up at 8:45pm, but the guy didn't start until 9:15pm. We went to the Mason Jar and they left for break right as we got there. We listened to them when they got back for a few songs and then went to the Casino. We both lost at the casino and decided to pick Kayla up.
She loved this kids play area!
The newer ships have such fun play area ideas!
It's truly timeless!
The next day was departure day. We had to be out of the room by 8am. All breakfast places also closed right at 8am, but they did have some muffins in the cafe promenade. We had to go to the 5th floor main dining room by 8:45am. We got our new keycard when we walked in and sat around for a little bit. We went through customs quickly and waited just a few minutes before getting back on board the ship by 9:45am. We checked into our muster station, signed Kayla up for the kids club, and then played around the ship a bit and hid some ducks.
Kayla liked this climber.
We played a round of putt putt.
We got to ride the carousel.
We had lunch at playmakers which is really good honestly. We also got Kayla a milkshake from Johnny Rockets.
We tried the campfire cookie again. The first one we had on the other ship wasn't that good... but this one was AMAZING! I ate almost all of it before remembering to take a picture of it. It was soooo good!!
I know you can't tell from this picture.. but Kayla was actually pretty sleepy haha. We all actually headed back to our room after lunch for a little nap.
We went to the sailaway party which was crazy! This was REALLY the party crowd on this portion of the cruise. It was people coming for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on a cruise and it was a lot of adults with friend groups celebrating birthdays, bachelorette parties, etc... A lot of previous sorority/frat guys without their kids for the weekend if how I'd describe it.
Once again, Kayla was all about getting on TV! We went to the hot tubs and watched the party.
Excited girl.
Yummy ice cream!
Kayla and I hung out and watched the sunset together.
It was a really good time. We were being so silly and having so much fun doing different poses together.
She was running up and down the chairs and each time she got back she'd do a different silly face.
Silly girl!
So much fun together!
My girl!!
Finally the sunset time!
Peace! Kayla grabbed dinner at the windjammer again, and was really into their cantaloupe. She ate tons of it before heading to the kids club.
Cody and I went to Izumi for dinner. I absolutely love Izumi. It is always a fantastic show and the food is always good. I appreciate being able to get whatever I want without worrying about the cost.
After dinner we went to see their production All In. It was so awesome! It amazing me how much technology and creativity there was in the show. People really have a good vision to be able to put together a show like this.
I really enjoyed it and thought that it was put together really well. Royal is usually pretty impressive with their original shows and this was no let down for sure.
We stopped into the pub and saw the rowdy crazy group of party goers in there. Could definitely tell this was a different type of cruise than what we were used to. We ended up going to the One Night Wonder party which I really enjoyed! I like Royal's promenade parties. It wasn't too super crowded at it though so I got on camera a bunch. I think it was the next day we were in our room and Cody and Kayla were laughing at me on the tv haha.
