Owen is famous!

Get this. Tom was watching YouTube videos of the Allure and we saw Owen! And then we saw the rest of our group! The kids were totally freaking out and joking that Owen was famous now!

It starts about 6:12. After that you will see us, too, after they do the quick walk-through of the restaurant. (This is just some random persons vlog. Nothing actual Royal Caribbean sponsored.)

Allure Day 7: No Cococay!

We knew something was up when we weren’t pulling into the Cococay dock in the morning.

We knew there was a chance of rain but still held out hope. Then the captain came on and announced that the weather was too bad and we couldn’t dock the ship—the waves were crashing over the pier so they obviously couldn’t risk sending workers down to help dock. So we were heading a few miles out to sea to wait it out a bit…but in the meantime we went out on the decks and ran into a worker and she basically said in her experience it didn’t look good. We were bummed—we didn’t even ever get close enough for a picture (I think we were eating breakfast at the point we would have been closest to the island). So here we are with sad faces with Cococay waaay in the background.

And the smiling faces when we realized we’d get our $600 back for the Cabana. 😄

The cool art installation seen from the elevators:

It was gray and cool but the kids wanted to go to the pool so we sent them off. We figured it would be a great time to hit the adults only hot tub. Ha. Haha. It was packed. There was room in one of the bigger hot tubs… except it was more like a luke warm tub. I was actually COLD sitting in it!! It didn’t help that it was windy, but I was literally getting goosebumps under the water. SAD FACE.

We managed to stick it out for an hour or so (the waiter was pretty good) and then it was back to the room to take a hot shower and get ready for lunch—we were meeting our friends for lunch in the main dining room (where you get seated and waited on vs. the Windjammer buffet). That was good as well, except they missed my main entree…so Tom shared a few bites of his since it wasn’t liked I was going to go hungry.

Then Tom took Katie to get her face painted while I looked at the cruise photos and decided what to buy. I don’t remember what the drama was but she was Miss Pouty Face. Seriously?!

She went back to the pool while Owen and I hung out for a bit. One story of note. Owen had picked out his souvenir with Tom earlier—a watch. He had wanted a build-a-bear like Katie got but we talked him into something useful because he really doesn’t need a stuffed animal (she doesn’t either, but at least she still plays with them). So Tom had taken him too look at watches. When they came back, he warned me that the watch was a bit more expensive than he’d planned. Turns out, he picked out like six for Owen to choose from, and of course the one Owen picked was one that had been in the wrong basket so it was way more money. Tom didn’t have the heart to tell him no after he’d already agreed to get a watch and then spent time picking it out. So…we were walking around while Katie got her face painted and he was carrying his watch (he couldn’t wear it yet because it had to be set and it was not a normal type watch) and we stopped to go to the bathroom. Typically the mens and womens bathrooms are on the opposite side of the ship, but the ones we stopped at were down the same hallway. I headed into mine (carrying my drink) and told him to wait for me. So I get out and…SEE HIS WATCH BAG ON THE FLOOR. WHAT?! GRRRRRR. So I picked it up and waited. Needless to say when he came out I had something to say. I asked why he set it there and he said he didn’t want to take it in with him. OMGKIDS. I told him he ALWAYS needs to keep his stuff with him—even in the bathroom. That anyone could have waked by, seen the bag, and grabbed it…and then he’d be out a brand new watch and daddy would have been PISSED. I mean, it makes me think I’ve failed as a parent. WHY would he think that was what he should do? Ugh.

So then it was back to our room where we spent some time relaxing on our balcony before dinner…

Our nightly plates of French fries before dinner—they noticed we were all always stealing fries off the kids plates so they just automatically started bringing us two extra plates before we even ordered!

Saying goodbye to our awesome staff… Owen really wanted a picture!

Then it was one last ride on the carousel…

Then the kids wanted to go to the daycare one last time, so we let them go. We had wanted them to come with us to one last show but figured we’d let them do what they wanted. So we went to the show with Papa and Grannie. There were lots of employees there as guests, too, so we actually sat next to one of Owen’s Flow Rider instructors! After the show we took the grandparents to say goodbye to the kids since we wouldn’t be seeing them in the morning. Dad admitted that the cruise “wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.” I guess that’s the best praise we could have gotten! Then we took the kids to bed because we had to be up really early to get off the ship.They had stayed by themselves just fine in the room before so we didn’t think anything about it. We told them they could watch TV and that was that.

This was waiting when we got back to the room. (Sidenote: we ended up getting ~$250 credit to use within the next year. I doubt it will get used.)

Our group kind of bar hopped for a bit. This was my last margarita at the martini bar…

And our group in the elevator as we were on our way to find karaoke for Greg. I snapped a pic because it was totally unusual that there was no one else in the elevator with us!

And then we found the bar! We had to wait for a few people (good and bad) and then it was Greg’s turn and of course he was awesome. So as we are all sitting there having a good time, guess who we see walking in, half crying? OWEN. WAIT, WHAT? With an employee behind him. It was like 11:30! And then Katie walked in behind them. WHAT THE—? Turns out they had both fallen alseep and then Owen woke up and got nervous that we weren’t there, so they went out looking for us! He said he went to a bunch of the bars and when he couldn’t find us, he went to Guest Services and they looked up where our charges were and saw we were next door at the bar so brought him over! GOOD GOD. And then they didn’t want to go back to the room and Katie wanted to stay with us at the bar. Um, no. So Tom took them back to the room and said we’d be home shortly. DAMN KIDS.

Allure Day 6: Sea Day

So the kids found some ducks—I didn’t even know this was a thing! We put their names on some of them and then they hid them again.

The other thing they did was scour the ship for all the Small Wonders:

Owen had started finding them on his own (they are very obvious in some places) but then he discovered how many there were and he wanted to find them all. He thought he should ask a random employee where they all were and write them down. I suggested he go to Guest Services because they probably had a list—and they did! So then it was a dedicated scavenger hunt and he got all the other kids involved, too. They had the list with them and crossed them all off!

Then Aden, Owen, and Linda went ziplining! It was unbelievably scorching hot on the pool deck waiting for them. Like I thought my skin might burst into flames. Crazy.

So one very strange thing about the ship today was that it was VERY tilty. I think we had one instance on the Harmony last year where we could actually feel the ship moving and even then it was slight. This ship, which is barely a titch smaller, should have been the same. But today? Water was sloshing in the pool and a few times it felt like you were drunk and you could REALLY feel it moving. And the weather wasn’t bad at all…so no idea what was going on. Again, no pictures or videos. It was just a pain to have my phone out—I didn’t have pockets so I was carrying it in my purse (and if I was at the pool, it was generally in a bag). Oh well, I don’t need photos of everything, right?

Tom hadn’t been feeling well so was spending a bit of time in the room resting. He made it out of his cocoon this afternoon…just in time to go to Windjammer for chili cheese fries! They weren’t easily accessible on the pool deck like they were on the Harmony, but you could get the same thing at the buffet…so we only had them once. SAD FACE. But Owen had them with us! Katie didn’t want to leave the pool so we brought her some buttered noodles (which we had to force her to eat like four bites).

Our friend Greg was in the Belly Flop contest and actually won 2nd place. It was really fun—and kind of made me regret not attending ship events like this on other cruises. But then I realized that it was only that much fun because we knew people who were participating…and I would NOT have been sitting by the pool in the crazy hot sun if it was just us on the cruise.

Then it was off to napkin folding—everyone had fun except Katie who, because she couldn’t do it exactly like they demonstrated, was a hot pouty mess. A few of us even won small prizes in the folding competition (which almost made her more upset)! (Sidenote: by dinner I had forgotten everything I learned but Aden was rocking it!)

After napkin folding came the Katie drama…we were all talking about what we were doing next and the older boys wanted to go off on their own for a bit. Katie wanted to go with them but I wanted her to come back and shower and wash her hair (and Zander was going back to shower, too) but as I was talking to her, she just turned and ran off to catch up to the boys.

WAIT, WHAT?

Linda was standing there and looked at me and said “Did she just walk away from you while you were talking to her?” She sure did. I walked over to the elevator and saw all four of them heading up. I WAS PISSED. I also half wondered why Zander was on the elevator as he was supposed to have been heading to the bathroom…but Linda convinced me he wasn’t in the elevator so I forgot about it.

So we went up the next elevator and quick checked 9 (Aden’s floor), 12 (our floor), and then walked all around 15 (the pool deck) and no kids. I wasn’t worried for her safety or anything as they’d been off on their own lots…but she had blatantly ignored me and ran off so I thought I’d do a cursory look for her and drag her ass home if I found her. We didn’t find them, so it was back to the room where I not-so-elegantly told Tom that I WAS DONE and Katie was his the rest of the night. She came home with Owen about a half hour later—we sent Owen out on his own and she proceeded to get in BIG trouble. She had to stick to us like glue the rest of the night—we didn’t even let her go see a friend across the room at dinner. Damn kids. Making me be a parent and give consequences on my damn vacation.

At dinner two things happened. First, we discovered that our friends had some drama with Zander after we left them. They thought he was going to the bathroom but he wasn’t coming back so they went to check on him and he wasn’t there—he HAD been in the elevator with the other kids! So they didn’t know this (and the in-app texting was laughable so I didn’t get their messages) and I was lost in my own kid drama, so they had ended up starting to file a missing kid report…when (I think, again, it’s been too long now and my memory isn’t great) he walked behind them at Guest Services. KIDS!!!!

The second thing was Mark told us how during the day, one of the crew members had asked if he was crew or guest (I may be misremembering the exact details but that was the gist) so he joked that he should be a waiter. So he actually asked our waiter for his name tag so he could go to our friend’s table as a joke. So this happened:

He grabbed the bread basket off our table, grabbed a huge tray on the way to their table, and then actually STOPPED BY ANOTHER TABLE AND ASKED IF THEY WANTED BREAD and they didn’t even blink and said yes! Ha! Then he went to the friend’s table and got a double take from them. We got a good laugh out of that.

After dinner we let Owen go to Kid’s Adventure with Aden while the rest of us went back to the room (we were all tired, plus Katie was being punished). But then I checked the hours for build-a-bear (“pet at sea”) that Katie wanted for her memento and this was the last night we’d be able to get it (since we’d be at CocoCay the next day) so since I am not a total monster, we took her to do that, even though she was on lockdown.

This was actually something I complained about on the satisfaction survey as well—they were out of the “good” fluff in the machines so they had to stuff the bears with cheap crap (she won’t ever care but I know, plus they didn’t get to fill it from the machine) plus they were out of the birth certificates. Really? You are out of a basic printed product? So you’re telling me your on-board print center that prints THOUSANDS of multi-color and multi-page documents a day can’t make a copy of a single page birth certificate for a $40 bear? REALLY?

I took Tylenol PM to make sure I slept well…but that meant I was falling asleep when Owen still wasn’t home. He had to leave the adventure club by 10 and wasn’t home by 10:15 and Tom wanted to go to bed so he had to go out and find him. Three last thing I remember is them walking in the door but I don’t remember Tom getting into bed!

Allure Day 5: San Juan

We decided to eat breakfast at Johnny Rockets again before heading out into San Juan. The breakfast sandwich with extra bacon was really yummy. While we were sitting there waiting to be seated and then waiting for food, I think we made at least seven trips back to the room—I sent Katie for my hair clip, then I wanted the Aleve, Tom went up for his hat, I went up for a battery backup (it was our first day with internet and I knew we’d run our phones down)…it got to be quite comical.

Owen loved having his own camera.

Papa stayed behind today as he didn’t want to walk through the city. As it turned out that was a good call as it’s really hilly and it was really hot. Our first planned destination was the Chocobar. We’d been there on our last cruise and knew we wanted to go back.

Unfortunately I had forgotten that we wanted to eat there…so we only had drinks and churros again. That’s a Chocolate Bloody Mary (I wouldn’t get it again).

Then it was off to the fort. I could have cared less about visiting there again—I had more than enough the last time. But we were with our friends and I didn’t want to miss out, so there I was. We stopped to let the kids cool off before heading over…

And then it was back into town to hit the street of umbrellas (which were army themed this time)…

And a recommended restaurant, Raices. With a margarita, of course. 🙂

The remnants of their shaved ice.

The kids didn’t want a single thing on the menu so they just sat and played while we ate. We really wanted to try mofongo since we didn’t the last time.

Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish with fried plantains as its main ingredient. Plantains are picked green and fried, then mashed with salt, garlic, broth, and olive oil in a wooden pilón. -Wikipedia

Tom ordered butter garlic octopus mofongo and I got fish tacos. The mofongo was good but my fish tacos were outstanding. Not much to look at in this picture but super delicious. The only bad thing was that it took so long to get our food that we were starting to worry about getting back to the ship on time—we were only a few blocks away but you do not want to miss the ship—so we all had to eat fairly fast. I really wish we could have eaten slower and enjoyed it longer.

Heading back to the ship! With time to spare!

Half an hour later? This.

The kids were down at the pool with the other families.

I was back in the room working feverishly while we still had internet as we were leaving the port—a new product had dropped so I was busy posting on my group and trying to post a few vacation pics!!

It was hot by the pool…and hard to see to take a good selfie.

Soon it was time to get ready for our second formal night. And joy of joys we had drama with Katie and her hair. JUST LIKE AT HOME. YIPPEE.

She had been in the pool so much and hadn’t really shampooed it well (since I wasn’t doing it daily like at home) so it was a total rats nest. But she wouldn’t let me wash it and complained and whined when I couldn’t do her hair like she wanted. I was still able to do something cute but she was very unhappy and that pretty much solidified that I don’t want to vacation with the kids again (I mean, who wants to parent on vacation?!). So we left the room and she had a total grouch face… Which is why I’m surprised I got these super cute pics.

We were walking through the Promenade since we had a few extra minutes to take photos…

And a bunch of the ship photos we took but didn’t buy. 🙂

The second formal night means lobster tails!!! I thought I’d get two, but Owen didn’t eat all of his (but he ordered it!) so I finished his. Our awesome server made this and we had to take a picture for Gramma Jean.

Afterwards we changed clothes, saw our daily towel animal…

…then went to an acapella show. It was decent, but Katie wasn’t terribly interested and…

Allure Day 4: St. Thomas

This morning we ate breakfast at Johnny Rockets! Normally it has an extra fee—but not for breakfast! I kind of missed all the choices available in the Windjammer buffet, but it’s also nice to have limited choices.

Don’t ask why I didn’t take many pics—I have no idea. None of the ship, none of the wildlife, none of the excursion line or the catamaran we were on. Maybe because it was HOT and I hate hot. 🙂

We got on the boat and everyone had a seat with snorkeling gear on it. We traveled about 20 minutes to the bay where we were going to be swimming with the sea turtles. We got our instructions, safety briefs, and enjoyed the breezes. Then it was time to get in the water. And it was…not what we expected. The short version is that it was too exhausting and too short.

The longer version? It was described as

Cruise in comfort aboard a power catamaran to the waters off Buck Island, where you’ll snorkel amidst colorful fish, vibrant coral and maybe some sea turtles!” with the typical warning “Guests must consider their physical fitness level and medical history when determining whether this tour is appropriate.”

Which kind of sounds like you’ll hop off the boat and leisurely swim around looking at turtles and sea life, right? Well I am a healthy 46yo woman who is not a peak swimmer but I know how to swim and I’m not going to drown…and this was EXHAUSTING. We had to swim A LONG WAYS to see the turtles. They are protected, so the boat has to drop anchor way away from where the turtles are so you have to swim over to them. They did warn us that there was a long trip and a short trip…but if you wanted to see the turtles you had to do the long trip. They also offered the use of fins, but strongly warned against using them if you were not used to them (citing the possibility of leg cramps). But if you don’t use them, you are likely going to struggle in the water since you have SUCH a long distance to swim (but they don’t tell you that). And you are swimming with snorkel gear (that you are likely mostly unfamiliar with) and maybe a waterproof camera…and there are like 50 other people swimming along with you and you are dodging 3-4 other boats and excursion groups. Egads.

So some people are faster and get there right away (with the guide) and you’re left dragging behind, struggling to catch up. My dad had to turn around and go back (and Tom had to help him, so he had to double back) and thankfully Katie opted to stay behind—she never would have made it and there is no way I could have helped her as I was barely making it. Tom and Linda had fins and didn’t have as many issues (but they were familiar with fins) but Tom was still tired. So by the time we all made it to the sea turtle area…we had about 3 minutes before they were moving on to the reef…which, you guessed it…was another longish swim away. And I was already exhausted. So my plan of a leisurely snorkel off the boat to check out some sea life and take some pics was not happening and I was frustrated and exhausted—not exactly best case scenario for a Caribbean vacation excursion.

Oh, and did I mention that Katie had refused to get off the boat? Yes it ended up okay because the swim would have been too hard, but still. That’s not what you expect after you’ve paid a bunch of money for a snorkeling excursion. She said she didn’t like saltwater and didn’t want any fish to touch her. I kinda wanted to strangle her to be honest. She wouldn’t even hop off the boat and swim for a few minutes.

And then we were back on the boat. And it was time for unlimited rum punch. I don’t generally like rum but this stuff was delicious.

Then it was off to “enjoy an hour of swimming, sunning, and relaxing at this idyllic spot.” If by idyllic you mean having to jump off a boat into neck-deep water to get to shore and then share the beach with a ton of other people from other boats…and that hour was over WAY too quickly. We barely had time to grab a quick lunch and some more rum drinks… And I practically had to BEG Katie to get in the water and Papa totally refused saying he didn’t like getting wet (or didn’t want to get wet?) which was silly because he was already wet from getting off the boat! But we had fun just relaxing in the water!

All that said, the excursion staff was amazing. They were all witty, helpful, and nice. I felt safe the entire time, they were good with our kids, and you could tell they knew what they were doing. I just wish Royal Caribbean would have more than a boilerplate description on their site because this was NOT the relaxing experience I wanted.

Once back on shore, we split up. I took Katie and Papa back to the ship and Tom, Owen, and Linda walked around St. Thomas. Katie and I dug into the frosting dog. The other group shopped and ate lunch.

Then Katie and I headed to the pool—I stayed in the hot (warm) tub and chatted with a bunch of people. Katie was running around in the pools and eating ice cream and visiting me in the hot tub. I don’t remember what all we did the rest of the night…but I know we called it an earlyish night again since we had another early morning planned for San Juan.

One funny story: the kids came home and said they had photobombed a video. So we had to watch it on the room TV…and sure enough… wait until the end. 🙂

Allure Day 3: Sea Day

While we were hanging out in the room at one point yesterday afternoon and I was looking through the app to see what was going on the next day, I saw that there was an opening for a private Flow Rider lesson at 8am. We thought that would be a special cruise treat for Owen (Katie had a cupcake decorating class with Tom scheduled for the day) so we were up early to be on the pool deck early! Papa and Grannie made it there, too! It was really nice and peaceful and quiet that early!!

Owen had fun, but unfortunately, I think the lessons need to be revamped. I know that everything on a cruise is a money grab…and this was no different. I knew my $69 wasn’t going to get an hour of personal time, but it was ridiculous to have to sit through SIX OTHER PEOPLE—especially because your own time relied totally on the whims of the instructors and how well you were doing. If you fell a lot, you got about three tries in three minutes. If you managed to stay up, they let you stay up until you fell—and then maybe let you go again. So Owen maybe got seven minutes total and another woman probably got 12 because she was better and didn’t fall as fast. It would be somewhat better if your lesson was a dedicated 10 minutes (and I said as much on my survey).

The kids played mini golf.

We played our elevator game—we’d all predict which elevator would arrive first!

I enjoyed my first quiet time on our balcony…

Then it was cupcake time! Owen and I were off shopping for lanyards and then came to check them out at the end of their class. They invited us in and we ended up taking home the instuctor’s cupcake plus she gave us EACH free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (it was for class participants only). We bought Katie an apron and a pink bag.

Katie did really well!! The cupcakes weighed about 2# each with the amount of frosting on them!! And we had THREE to carry back to the room! But Katie had decided that she was giving hers to Mark, and he was actually next door at Sabor, so we went and delivered it! Then it was back to the room where we ran into Papa and brought him back to the room. He enjoyed eating the remains of one of the cupcakes.

The kids then headed off to the pool and I went for some margaritas. 🙂 The avocado one was strangely good—every sip was like THIS IS WEIRD but then ended with BUT GOOD. Then we sat by the pool with our friends and drank while the kids played in the pool.

Some artwork in the vestibule on my way to the bathrooms.

On our way to dinner and playing the elevator game!

At one point they had a conga line with the staff and all the kids went off and had a blast!

And Hai was doing toothpick games for us.

Zoltar worked this time! But we didn’t get a card or anything. It was a little disappointing.

I can’t remember where we were but apparently the kids were at another bar with our friends and their kids…

Our towel animal!

We let the kids run around while we went out and about, and apparently they ended up with friends on the Rising Tide bar!

We called it a night pretty early since we would be in St. Thomas first thing in the morning and our excursion started at 8:30!

Allure Day 2: Sea Day!

We didn’t get great sleep because Katie was coughing all night (even with NyQuil). The kids got up about 6:30 and I was able to ignore them until about 7—they wanted to go out and run around so I sent them out with instructions to be back by 8 for breakfast (Tom was working out and that gave me time to shower). It’s really great to be able to send them out on their own.

Tom and I had to stop to get our usual breakfast Bloody Marys (though the bar here is called Bow & Stern instead of Boot & Bonnet) and Linda joined us. We also enjoyed the people watching.

Then we introduced the kids and grandparents to the huge Windjammer buffet for breakfast.

Owen really wanted to to the flow rider so that was next. The little kids were bummed they were too small to do it but they had fun hanging out together.

He practiced twice on the boogie boards (stomach and knees) which then allowed him to upgrade to surfing at the more advanced station.

Now, just because he passed didn’t mean he was that good, LOL. It just meant that he had passed the bare minimum. Unfortunately he got super bummed on the next level because he kept falling—and they told him he was done. He misunderstood, though, and thought they meant he was DONE with the flow rider… but they just meant his turn was over. But he was also bummed because he didn’t stand up by himself and thought he was a failure. So we had to talk him down from that.

And we might have had a drink or two.

The rest of the afternoon included lunch, a veterans service (we all got medals and cake!), just hanging out around the ship, eating lunch, and watching the ice show.

Interestingly, I noticed this piece of art. Notice where it’s from?!

Tonight was also the first formal night. We were coming from the ice show so were already running behind, and then Tom realized he had forgotten his cuff links…so he ran down quick to the gift shops to buy some…and no one had any!! What?! So we were trying to figure out what he could use…and we ended up using a pair of Katie’s earrings (far from perfect but they worked for a bit). We also took formal family photos on the way into dinner…and one was good enough that I bought it!

The menu is good every night but some nights you just need to order four starters (they typically have four selections that change nightly and four “classics” that stay the same). I definitely took advantage of the Escargot many nights and Tom (and Owen) got the French Onion soup many nights.

Our server Hai was really great with the kids and was already making them balloon and napkin animals on the second night! We wondered what the rest of the week would have in store!

Owen was in the bathroom while this was happening and Aden was super sweet and made sure that she made a sword for him as well.

We took the kids to the Adventure Camp daycare after dinner with our friends’ kids and then went and hung out in our old favorite bar, Schooners. I tried to order my drink that I basically lived on last year, joking with the bartender that he had a lot to live up to…and surprisingly he was less than inviting. And I’d even go so far as to say he was a bit short with me. It was very odd, because normally all staff are very considerate and jovial and he…was not. Needless to say we didn’t go back there after that night.

But! We did have fun, as we ended up meeting our friends’ friends and their friends’ friends that night! So the eight of us just hung out talking and half singing along with the piano guy and having fun for a few hours.

The big joke was that Greg looked like Blake Shelton so I was taking “sneak shots” pointing at him behind me, saying I was going to post them on Facebook saying LOOK WHO I SAW ON MY CRUISE! (If you look closely you can see his wife laughing behind me because we set this up and he was posing.) And then he kept making fun saying JENNIFER HUDSON IS IN THE HOUSE!

Well, come to find out, he is an actual country singer! He joked that he’s famous within a 5-mile radius and I told his wife Anne that it was killing me not to be able to Google him which she found hilarious. So we just called him Blake and it was most of the night before I learned his real name was Greg. The other couple were were with—Mike and Melanie—were great, too.

Then we took a break for everyone to go get the kids from daycare. (Sidenote? They all said they hated it! Apparently all the other kids were rude and mean! No one wants to go back again!!)

And then this happened. I opted not to buy that photo.

Then we sent the kids to bed…and I made this happen because why not?!

From previous conversation, apparently Blake/Greg has a real knack for winning stuffed animals so we ended up going to the casino so the boys could try their hand at the Cash Claw game where a few of them tried unsuccessfully, of course, to win wrapped $100 stacks. It did provide us quite a bit of entertainment, though.

After we left the casino, the professional photographers were still out so we made the boys do this:

Later we determined they were the Bad Back Boys (a la Backstreet Boys grown up).

Shortly thereafter we called it a night and this is what we found when we got back to the room.

Allure Day 1: Embarkation!

Sunday—Fort Lauderdale, FL

We had a quick hotel breakfast and then it was time to board the shuttle at 9:30. Embarkation went really super easy and fast—our shuttle left the hotel about 9:40 and we were getting on the ship about 10:50! After we got through check-in, we were just finishing getting our group picture taken when our friends came around at the corner…so we were able to get a group photo together! It turned out really good so that was one of the six that I bought!

Some quick snaps while the professional was taking her photos.

Then a little bit of check-in (the kids had to get security bands that they would need to wear the entire cruise) and playtime (there was a playset in the waiting area).

And before we knew it we were headed up the gangway!

The first thing we weren’t expecting was NOT walking right onto the hustle and bustle of the ship’s Promenade. We actually had to walk down about 30 yards. But we headed straight to Boleros, the bar where we got our first drink on the Harmony—and the place we got our beloved wrist bands. AND LEARNED THERE WERE NO WRIST BANDS ON THIS SHIP!! WHAT?!?!?! Yeah, they don’t have the technology for it on this ship—they will (hopefully) after the upcoming spring 2020 renovation but for now it’s old school.

Well, it’s certainly first world problems but that was really disappointing because we’d talked them up so much to the kids and were excited that we’d actually managed to save our bands from the last cruise. But we didn’t plan ahead with lanyards because we thought we’d all have wristbands!! (Note: I did happen to throw in two lanyards so Owen and Katie were able to use those but Tom and I just used pockets or my purse.)

Since we were at a bar…we got our first drinks—of course a margarita and a mojito.

We sat down to gather our thoughts a bit since Dad needed to sit and rest. The kids went to check out the pizza place and our friends wandered in the bar. We then explored the ship a little and the kids and Grannie rode the carousel.

And I got a margarita from the Mexican restaurant…I started with the Sweet and Spice and it was yummy.

Then we all met at Chops for lunch. I had to sit in the big fancy chair in the lobby.

We really enjoyed it, but BIG SURPRISE Katie didn’t like anything. She did start with the jumbo shrimp cocktail but didn’t like it and it was downhill from there (she didn’t even like the mac and cheese).

You can see all our shirts!! Kind of.

When it was time for dessert Tom said he wanted nothing. He got it.

Then he and Mark were joking about it being the Marine corps birthday so Mark told the waitress that it was Tom’s birthday…

It was really fun, the food was excellent, and we all had a good time.

After Chops, the kids explored more with Papa and Grannie and went to the pool while Tom and I decorated the room door as a suprise.

And Papa and Grannie’s door:

We were also finally able to get in our room (though we had no luggage yet)…and we were really surprised by the differences between the Harmony and the Allure. We had thought it would be pretty much the exact same…ha.

The room was definitely a little smaller and not laid out as nicely (the bathroom and balcony were smaller, the closet was in an awkward spot, and the couch/kids’ bed was closest to the window), we didn’t have nice big desk drawers for clothes, and there were only two outlets in the entire room! (And you can’t bring extension cords so you’re stuck.)

There were other little differences that jumped out, too. For example:

  • The bar where we get our Bloody Marys doesn’t have the nice high back leather chairs we used for people watching (and drinking our bloody Marys) in the morning. And the Bloody Mary bar (shrimp, bacon, etc., is apparently somewhere else).
  • We can’t text. You have to use their app and it’s constantly logging you out and dropping the wifi signal.
  • They didn’t have the chili cheese fries at the pool Cafe!!!

Tom stayed in the room to rest and I went up to find everyone at the pool and sat on the lounge chairs for a bit. Katie had her first of many ice creams…

Ignore my lips. I put it on waaay too thick so it came off.

Then it was time to leave!!! Tom did make it up to join us.

We showed the kids the room and got changed for dinner. Soon it was time for dinner and it was great. Owen ordered from the adult menu and had steak and Katie got pizza from the kids menu. They had fun with their friends. We enjoyed French onion soup (Tom) and crab cakes and oysters (Jen), prime rib (Tom) and a seafood mash (Jen), and pear blueberry crumble (Jen) and molten lava cake (Tom). It was all good except the crumble was pretty plain (it was sugar free). At the time I thought I didn’t really need to take pics of the menus because I didn’t need to record everything we ate… But now, after the fact, I wish I had.

I do know we had dessert shots every night—our friend Mark had heard about them on his previous cruise (they aren’t on any menu). They were always very good and were always something mixed with Bailey’s!!

After dinner we went back to the room and the kids were excited for their first towel animal!

(They had been bummed there was no towel animal so we asked our steward about it. So we were nicely surprised after dinner!)

Then it was off for the big water show Ocean Aria. They did a little crowd warm up and this happened:

The show really was something to see—divers and acrobatics using a tiny little pool. The kids loved it, though, and eventually went and sat right up front and got splashed! After they went down, a huge group of kids joined them!

Afterward we let the kids roam the ship on their own (we wandered as well) and gave them instructions to be back to the room by 9:30 and they were! So then they were allowed to go out again on their own until 10:30. They were out playing ping-pong and who knows what else. We did sign them up for the kids adventure camp thing so they’ll do that later this week.

Florida, we are in you!!

Waiting to grab the shuttle to the hotel.

Papa and Grannie got to the hotel about 20 minutes after we did. After we ate lunch and got into our rooms, we celebrated!

This is what getting up at 3am looks like at 4pm when the Florida weather is crappy so the kids only spent about 20 minutes in the pool and we can’t sit outside or anything. 😒

There’s football on the TV and I’m trying to resist so I will be tired tonight and will hopefully fall asleep before midnight. I hate to see her nap because then she might be up all night, but she really needs the sleep as she’s had a cough for two weeks now and she coughs off and on most nights.

Why bother with glasses when you’re the only one left drinking? And is it even a vacation if you don’t swig from the bottle in a hotel room?

When there’s a nail salon next to the restaurant your friends have picked…and you had a nail emergency earlier that you weren’t sure how you were going to deal with. I was a happy, happy girl!!

Then it was down the sidewalk to an amazingly delicious dinner at Padrinos with Eddy and Susan…and then back to see their new (to us) house. It’s been four years since we’ve been there!

It’s time, y’all! We’re Florida and Royal Caribbean bound!!

Look who we ran into at the airport?! (We actually knew they’d be there as their flight got changed recently.)

As luck would have it, we were in rows 25 and 27…and they were in row 26…so we rearranged to all sit with our friends!

Zander is always twirling Katie’s hair. They both like it.

The kids were all amazing on the flight…

My brain is starting to worry about cruise things…

I’m a worrier by nature and travel makes it worse. My brain must be starting to worry about cruise things, because last night I dreamed…

  • My phone was out of space.
  • All the pictures I took were blurry.
  • I forgot my suitcase.
  • One of our cats stowed away.
  • I kept getting lost on the ship because they had Hogwarts-esque stairways that kept moving.
  • Mark and Zhalom jumped off the ship as a joke.
  • It rained in every port.
  • We ate at McDonald’s in port.
  • I couldn’t find the excursion.
  • All the food tasted bland.
  • All Tom wanted to do was drink coffee.
  • The kids were nowhere to be found.

In one week our family will be on this ship…

I honestly still can’t believe it’s real. This will be our first cruise with the kids and they are beyond excited.

And I am extremely thankful for SeneGence for providing me the opportunity to treat my family to this experience. Yes, you heard that correctly…this entire cruise from flights to excursions to souvenirs is MY TREAT—paid for totally by my little side gig. That was my main goal when I started doing this 2-1/2 years ago—totally a pipe dream and little did I know that the business would take off and I would be having so much fun and earning enough to spoil my family like this.

SeneGence has also totally changed my self confidence, changed my look, given me a whole new set of friends, and showed my kids that when you set goals anything can happen!

#senethankful

The story behind the biggest and best birthday present ever.

So let me preface this announcement by asking if you remember what one of my business goals was? Anyone? Bueller?

Yes, it was a family cruise. (I think I specifically said Disney, but realistically any cruise would suffice.) And we hoped the grandparents would tag along—I mean, what a great experience for the kids, right? And we’d all get an amazing vacation where no one has to cook or clean, we all get to relax and have fun with the kids, and hopefully escape some yucky Midwest weather.

So we forewarned the grandparents (they weren’t quite as excited as we were but they promised to think about it) and let our travel agent know we were looking for a good deal on a cruise. But then life takes over and you don’t think about it and time passes and you know that if you don’t actively engage, nothing will ever happen. And then something happens out of the blue and before you know it, you have put down a deposit on a cruise and it’s convenient to wait a few days to tell the kids after their party!

So what happened in an instant? New friends of ours (from baseball) that we’ve been hanging around with (and the kids love) were talking about a cruise they’re going on this fall. And not having any idea that a family cruise was actually in the back of our minds, she (possibly mostly in jest) said “You guys should come with us!” So I took a breath and said “You know, that might just work!”

It was the cruise line we just went on last year (almost the same ship, too) so that was a plus. A quick check of the calendar and with Tom (who pretty much gave an immediate and unequivocal YES!), and a few quick messages with our travel agent…and the cruise was booked! (Our TA even said he’s never booked a cruise that fast before!)

Long multiple-day story short, my dad and stepmom decided to go, too, so that’s awesome and we’re super excited. (We really tried to convince my mom and stepdad to go but weren’t successful.)

In the meantime, Tom started watching YouTube videos about the ship, pretending we were just showing the kids examples of cruises. We reaffirmed that we would be going on a cruise before we moved again, but that still left us two years.

We honestly didn’t think too much about how we were going to tell them, so after the party I rushed to the basement and cobbled together a card with the cruise info on it so they’d read it and hopefully we’d get a great video reaction.

Well, as usual, things didn’t go quite as we’d thought…

I’m down 13 in one week!

Just in case you weren’t sold on Naturally Slim or didn’t think it was magic… Listen up.

Remember from my earlier post that I gained a whopping THIRTEEN pounds while on the cruise (I ate and drank ALL THE THINGS and then ate and drank some more and then had some more for good measure).

Well, in my first week back on NS, I lost all 13 (13.8 to be exact)!! 😳🤩🤗 Now I know a big chunk of that was water weight (my ankles look and feel normal now!) but holy shit, y’all—even I didn’t expect that big of a loss (but I’ll take it)!

The best part is that now I am super geeked about NS again, which is good because I’ve gained *cough grumble* an embarrassing chunk over the past two years…and it’s high time it came off.

I am SO ready to get back down to my goal weight…

Day 8 — Debarkation (Fort Lauderdale)

Morning comes WAAAAAAY too soon on the last day. We dock at 5:30 and everyone has to be off the ship by 9am.

I decided to wear my tiara home because A) WHY NOT? and B) I didn’t want to pack it.

We actually got off the ship and through baggage and customs pretty easily. Then it was a quick bus ride to the airport, where normally I’d be super excited about this, but…after a solid week of drinking it doesn’t even sound good. Mark this day in history.

And vacation isn’t quite over yet! Look who we ran into at the airport?! Peeps!

And then vacation really WAS over when we landed in Chicago and it was COLD. Bah humbug.

Day 7 — Sea Day

Tom started his day (as he’s started most all other days) with a run up at the gym while I stay behind and watch the ocean pass by as I write notes about our days.

Today was our last full day on the ship so it was time to do a few things we’d not gotten to all week—mainly, the Ultimate Abyss, a huge 10-story dry slide. (You can watch someone else’s video of it here.)

I am really glad we didn’t have to wait in line for it, because while it was fun, it wasn’t worth any more than maybe a 10-minute wait. Strangely, even though there wasn’t a line, for some weird reason it felt very awkward to stop and look around and take any pics. I regret that now, because it really was a cool sight (after the fact I realized the floor was see-through—I totally missed that!). I did snap this one looking out of the very top.

Here’s the only pic we got of it (from the first day when we attempted to go down, but were stopped because we had a backpack).

Today was also the day to hit the casino! We each had a free $5 credit to use, and we went through it pretty quickly, though playing the penny slots made it last a little longer. I did win some bigger amount of pennies at one point which was VERY exciting, even though I had NO idea what was going on on the machine (turns out it was a touch screen and I had to pick some squares to see what I won—and even then I’m not sure exactly what I won). All I know is at one point I was back up to 530 pennies after being down to like 200 pennies. 🙂

And then I took this pic for my mom. I didn’t play because I was out of credits.

And then off for a glass of Moscato, since I’d avoided it all week (I’m learning that wine gives me a headache). Ti was shocked—SHOCKED I TELL YOU—when I ordered this. 🙂

Oh, also? I bought a tiara. I’d looked at it at the beginning of the trip and said “I don’t need a tiara” but when it was still there this late in the week, I said WHY NOT? I can wear it for the ball…or just around for the hell of it. I LOVE IT.

Back at our bar before dinner…

This was our dining room.

And tonight we joined our other friends’ table again since we were tablemateless AGAIN. They all LOVED the tiara. 🙂

Taking some time after dinner to pack…all the liquor we bought. 🙂 Yes we did have to buy another suitcase on board (souvenir!!) so realistically we probably didn’t save THAT much money, but it’s always fun to buy alcohol on board so as we drink it at home we can relive the memories.

The last thing we wanted to do was have a drink in the Rising Tide bar—it’s a bar that rises up and down in the middle of the ship (starting on 5, the Promenade, and going to to 8, Central Park). We’d wanted to do it all week but it always had a line (there’s only like 20-25 seats). So as we were walking by, we noticed it was getting ready to load and there was no one in line yet so we snagged a place! Unfortunately, no one else in our group made it on with us…and we thought a round trip up and down would be like 30 minutes, but it was more like an hour—it only took like 7 minutes to rise up three stories and then stopped at the top for SOOOO long that we eventually just got off. It wasn’t very exciting. We did get a cool view of our regular bar, though.

In trying to finish all the things, we went back to Zoltar YET AGAIN and once more it still wasn’t working. That made about our fifth time trying it. Here’s what I think of you, Zoltar.

Leslie grabbed Ti to take a pic of our group on the stairs. Not our whole group, of course, but whoever was right there. It’s not the best pic but such good memories.

Day 6 — Labadee, Haiti

Good morning from our balcony!

The morning started a little later than I’d have preferred (we didn’t dock until 9:30)—we had a full day of excitement (half mile zip line) and relaxation (private cabanas over the water) planned and I wanted to GET TO IT!! Royal Caribbean has their own private section of the island (a secluded spot on the north coast of Haiti) and they have Nellie’s cabanas, which is a set of 10 private cabanas overlooking the bay. Our group had rented seven of them…which meant about 40 of our group members were going to be there!

While waiting to get off the ship with our group, we realized Keens were the shoe of the day! 🙂

Just gorgeous views walking down the pier…

After walking across the island to get to the cabanas to drop our stuff off (and taking a few quick pics)…

…Six of us thrill-seekers pretty much had to leave right away to head to the Dragon’s Breath zip line, which is the longest over-the-water zipline in the world.

Here we are after getting suited up and getting some brief instructions. We then had to walk across the street for a short practice run. You may laugh, but one person in our group decided it wasn’t for her after her 10-second trip. (I have video of our practice run but it’s not terribly exciting!)

It was fun, but we all felt the process could have been streamlined a bit as it took us about two hours! Thankfully, one of the “beach monitors” took us under his wing toward the start and got us out of there as quickly as he could—he somehow managed to get us to the front of the line so we didn’t then have to wait for 25 people to zip line ahead of us. He also volunteered to take photos and videos of us (with our cameras) so we had him do that. Of course I am not used to that kind of thing and realized a bit too late that he was obviously angling for a tip…so we thankfully ran into him again and were able to tip him. It was hard to see the screen in the bright sun so I was just crossing my fingers he actually took some pics and we didn’t just waste our money…but I was able to look later and he did get some so that’s cool. The ride was really fun and was over waaay too soon—it only takes like 45 seconds to travel the half mile but it felt like 20 seconds. The only bad thing is that you can’t really take pictures on the way down (which I had been hoping to do) so I set it to video and the resulting video isn’t terribly exciting…

To get our entire group up to the top at the same time, Tom and I rode in the cab with the driver!!

Walking out the catwalk to get to the drop zone!

Here’s what it looked like:

I’m next!

I didn’t have a GoPro and couldn’t hold my camera in my hand, so I just wrapped it tightly on my wrist and tried to angle it enough to see something. This might make you seasick. 🙂

I don’t know how they knew to assign this pic to our onboard photo account, but I like the magic! (Usually they had people asking for room numbers, but this pic just appeared in our account! We searched and found mine, but long story short we had two logins and we saved it under the wrong one, and when I went to pick pics to buy, it wasn’t saved in my account and I forgot about it.)

Awesome group shot! The good thing about going with other people is being able to share the group photos without having to buy each one separately!

Then it was back to the cabanas to hang out with the group where we spent the rest of our day floating in the water and enjoying tropical drinks. We all had floating mats and pretty much just floated around in a big group (or a few smaller groups) the entire time. I could have stayed at the cabanas another few hours (or days) and been totally content…

All too soon it was time to head back to the ship. This is when I decided this should have been a super long port day—docking at 6:30a and leaving at 8p. On the way back, we realized we hadn’t gotten a drink in a pineapple!! The guy was just closing up but got us one…aaaaand we should have skipped it. It was waaaay too strong, plus it started leaking almost immediately (we tossed it before we even got back to the ship). And it was $14! And not included in our alcohol package! But we got the photo op so I guess it was worth it? 🙂

And why not stop by a bar on the way to our room? We’d only had a few drinks all day…

Then it was time to get showered and dressed for dinner.

We actually ate with eight other friends at a different table because all of our regular tablemates were off eating elsewhere so Tom and I would have been eating alone (not the worst thing ever—we did it one other night and had a blast!). They happened to have two open seats so it was perfect. It was also nice because we hadn’t actually gotten to visit too much with them. Of course we also then got to hear some stories about other people which was fun.

After dinner I sat at the bar for awhile with two girlfriends and then Tom came down and we all went shopping! (Towards the end of the cruise they really bring out the souvenirs and have deals on alcohol.) I bought a neat dress clutch and bow ties for Owen…and Tom and I bought a few bottles of cheap liquor. Then he went back up to the room and us girls walked around for a bit. I might have shopped more.

Unfortunately, the one bad thing about the day is that we missed a show that was supposed to be super hilarious and we’d been looking forward to…but it didn’t start until 11:15 and honestly that’s just too late for us (we’ve been in bed by 11 every night). We thought about trying to stay up and make it but I started feeling really yucky about 9:30 and just needed to go to bed. I hadn’t had that much to drink—there were days I’d had more and never felt bad—so I think it was just a combination of drinks (mixing alcohols) and being in the sun all day (it was HOT and we were all sunburned). I felt fine when I rolled over in the middle of the night (thankfully).

Day 5 — San Juan, Puerto Rico

My day started out with me tweaking my back pretty much just walking across the room after my shower. SERIOUSLY?! I hadn’t brought any great pain drugs so I sent out a text to see if anyone had anything that would be worthwhile for me. A friend did have something I’ve taken in the past so tried that. I was really afraid that I’d have to cancel our zipline adventure the next day so wanted to do my best to make sure that didn’t happen.

The plan for today was walking around San Juan with our good friend Eddy as our fearless leader. He grew up in Puerto Rico but has obviously been gone for a long time. As we were getting off the ship it started pouring so we were all pretty much soaked by the time we got off the pier. Ugh. Fortunately the rain stopped pretty quickly and we dried out as we walked around town.

The sights were cool, too. Just look at the colorful buildings and blue cobblestones! (Do you know about the cobblestones?

The blue cobblestones that originally paved the streets of all of Old San Juan are now being replaced with new ones. The original cobblestones (adoquines in Spanish) were cast from iron slag, which is the waste from iron smelting. They were brought as ballast in the bottoms of European merchant ships in the 1800s.

Our first stop was a coffee house (none for me, thanks—but I did share in the small desserts we got)…

And then a chocolate restaurant to get churros…and more coffee.

Unfortunately I didn’t pay attention to how hot my hot chocolate was and burned my throat (I swallowed out of habit instead of spitting it out). So my throat hurt the rest of the day. My back was doing okay and I could walk but it certainly didn’t feel 100%.

By now the sun was coming out and it was getting hot and humid. Our group walked around one of the local forts (bonus score—free admission for military!) and then through town and some of the shops.

We thought it was hilarious that there was a Skittles van at the fort. Skittles is the nickname of our good friend who was basically in charge of setting up the whole cruise for our group. He wasn’t with us, but we had to take a picture!

Historical things aren’t really my cup of tea, but some of the things were neat and the views were gorgeous.

Another area we walked through is one that was ravaged by the recent hurricanes. I liked the sign: temporally. 🙂

You can see the scaffolding along the wall.

It was terribly crowded and crazy once we got back to the downtown area—one of the things I don’t like about visiting ports with 5000 of our fellow shipmates. You can get a small idea from this pic of the Umbrella Sky Project.

Both ships in port, which is why it was SOOOO crazy in town!

Our group split up at this point and we all did something different for lunch. We ended up with Eddy and Susan at a local diner for some quick Cuban sandwiches and then we made our way back to the ship where we relaxed on our balcony while waiting to set sail again!

Then Tom napped and I went to the bar to cool my throat with my yummy drinks. This was my view pretty much every time I was at The Schooner.

I visited with some friends who were also at the bar and eventually went up to the room to start getting ready for formal night in the dining room. Tom wore his dress blues again and we tried to recreate our formal night pic from 10 years ago but I know we didn’t accomplish it (for starters, my hair was curly, I didn’t have a red dress, and I had sunburn on my chest).

We also stopped by the bar (yet again!) to waste some time before dinner.

Ti, our favoritest bartender, said he wanted a picture of Tom without me since he was in uniform and I said that was fine because I wanted a picture of him without Tom. 🙂

Pics taken at dinner…one from a friend and one the professional ship photographer. 🙂

And then a few pics of Tom with our tablemates—we’ve known them forever and lived by Josiah and Leslie in DC for years, but they’d never seen Tom in dress blues in person so they wanted pics!

After dinner we took another professional photo with friends…and it turned out really good!!

Then went and changed clothes and went to our bar (Schooner!) and ended up paying Uno with a small group for an hour or so. It sounds ridiculous but it was really quite fun! We called it a night about 9:45 and we’re in bed with lights out by 10:30. It’s exhausting being on vacation!!

Day 4 — Philipsburg, St. Maarten

This morning we woke up about 6:30 as we were pulling into port.

Most of our crew was on Deck 11, so those people you see on their balcony? We know them.

Interestingly enough, the ship was pulling in and then did a 180 and backed into its slip (this was a bit disheartening as I was hoping to be able to sit on our balcony and people watch but as it was we were facing an unused pier).

Watching where we are on the TV.

We got off the ship and actually stopped for a photo. It turned out pretty well so we bought it! I might need to Photoshop the lurker out of it. 🙂

During the hour and a half we were on Saint Maarten, it was sunny, it rained, it was hot as hell, and we saw goats. Yes, goats. They looked like little dots on the side of the mountain. This pic is zoomed in a bunch:

We didn’t plan to do much here (no excursions), but we did walk through a few jewelry stores and contemplatively looked at some Hearts on Fire jewelry to match my wedding ring (I’ve been thinking about it ever since our last cruise 10 years ago). It was severely tempting to buy a necklace… Tom said I could, but as the person who actually pays the bills and keeps our finances in order…I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $1800 (even as an early 20th anniversary present). Sometimes it sucks being an adult. But I told him we’ll just have to come back again. 🙂 That said, I did dream about a $10k tennis bracelet…

We were going to buy the kids their gifts (matching tropical wear) but unfortunately we had forgotten all of our cash and a lot of the places at the pier only took cash. But of course the chocolate shop (that a friend recommended) took credit cards so we bought chocolate. Darn.

We saw George Clooney!

And I love the warnings on cigarettes…

Heading back to the ship. It’s just HUGE.

We opted against traveling around Saint Maarten and doing anything as we really just kind of wanted to chill on the ship without anybody on it. And, indeed, there was really nobody on the ship. That said, most of the bars and restaurants were also closed so there wasn’t much open for us to do.

We ended up hitting one of our regular bars…

Grabbing some random food at different places—look, a salad (it was really really good!) and more chili cheese fries!

Taste-testing tequila… I wanted to see which I liked better—silver or gold. They aren’t supposed to make you more than one drink at a time, but she knew us from before, knew we were just going to sit there, and knew I was doing a taste test… (That last drink is what I showed up with.) Result? Silver wins.

Hanging out on our balcony…

Tom and I have both decided that we like the ship when we are in port and the majority of the people are off the ship. We do not like a lot of people. That said, one of the things that I do indeed find most interesting is that even though there are almost 7,000 guests on the ship, it is not nearly as busy (anywhere) as you would think it would be. We have 68 people in our group and we can go a majority of the day without running into any one of them! (Of course, that said, we can also walk around the ship one time and run into the same person three times.)

And meeting Johnny from Sweden at the Solarium bar who we spent most of the afternoon with.

And remember what I said about the bartenders? Today, the Solarium Bar staff is learning that all we want are Toasted Almonds. If SHE is making them, they’re frozen; if HE is making them, they’re on the rocks. Both are delicious. Since we’ve also been ordering them for hours, they give us a little leeway when charging them to our room cards. Normally you can only get one drink per person per room card but since they know they’re for the three of us they will let us get three drinks at a time. The bartenders are awesome.

(As I write this, Johnny and Tom are now in the hot tub while I sit in the shade on the pool deck and drink my drink.)

Then it was back to the room for me to relax on the balcony again and wait for Tom to come home!

4:27 Enjoying the balcony!

4:41 Dressed and ready for dinner! (Yes I have clothes on! It’s a dress with thinner shoulder straps and a V neck!)

Some of the boards today:

We had no tablemates tonight at dinner so we had a blast with just the two of us!

More drinks at the robot bar:

Tonight’s towel animal.

It was an early night, as Tom wasn’t feeling too well. Turns out Johnny had been buying Jack Daniels drinks for them… And Tom isn’t a Jack Daniels guy but drank them anyway. Let’s just say he learned his lesson!

Day 3 — Sea Day

Technically Tom starts his day at the gym while I sleep in…

But I say our day starts after that with Bloody Marys. This morning we were surprised by a Bloody Mary bar at our usual morning pub! Yes, please!

Isn’t it gorgeous? 🙂 I never did get used to the lime, though, and always forgot to tell them no thanks.

Then it was off for a sushi-making class! A huge group of ours did it yesterday but we weren’t able to get the same class. It was really fun but I didn’t get to take any pictures during because we all had gloves on and were (obviously) touching everything. So here’s before…

And after…good enough to eat!!

Yes, we all had to wear the silly paper hats.

And then we had drinks at our favorite bar with our favorite bartenders… I can’t remember exactly how we started drinking the Snow White (I think it was vodka, cream, and Bailey’s) but it was really good… And then it morphed into a Toasted Almond with the addition of Amaretto…which I then morphed into an Almond Joy (adding a chocolate drizzle) because what coconut almond drink wouldn’t be better with chocolate?! And sometimes they’d blend them for us so we had adult milkshakes!

I always laughed at people who went on cruises and talked about their awesome bartenders. I always thought it was strange when people said that they “made friends” with their bartender or that their bartender knew them and remembered them. But after being on the ship for four days and going to the same bars over and over, I can totally understand that—James and Ti at The Schooner know what drink to start making when they see me. Sometimes they’d see us coming and start making the same drinks. And they had fun creating our new drinks. And we got to know them over the week. (You’ll see more pics later.)

And then dinner was with a group of 12 at Wonderland. Imaginative cuisine, as the sign says. 🙂

You had to paint the portrait in order to view the menu.

Since we had such a large group, they pretty much just brought out everything—we didn’t have to decide. (Looking back at the menu now, I see a few things we missed.) Most everything was expectedly delicious, but my favorite bite of the night (and actually the entire cruise) was the Shrimp Kataifi (under the FIRE section—and actually the very first photo below). The Liquid Lobster and Tomato Water were also favorites. It was a hell of a lot of food and by the time we got to dessert we could barely eat anything.

I’m sure we went to our bar for a nightcap or met peeps somewhere, but [writing this two weeks later] my mind is a bit hazy plus I have no more pics of the day so who knows. 🙂

That said, this was the art above our bed. Seriously, a lady bug? What are the odds? 🙂

Day 2 — Sea Day

Of course we started the day with Bloody Marys. 🙂 The Boot & Bonnet was the only place open to get them first thing in the morning, so we’d often just sit in the nice leather chairs and people watch on the promenade.

Then it was lunch—Tom grabbed one of the amazing roast beef sandwiches from Deck 8 (one of the buffets in Central Park) and then we went up to Deck 15 for the chili cheese fries! With drinks, of course.

And there was wandering and people-watching and catching up with friends as we ran into them throughout the ship…and then it was time for the welcome party! Friends of ours are BIG cruisers and are like platinum level, so they have a suite…and they had a party for everyone! It was amazing to see how “the other half” lives on a cruise! Their bathroom was about the size of HALF of our entire room (plus it had a full-size tub and a bidet!).

Catching up with a good friend out on the HUGE balcony (the balcony was bigger than the size of our room!).

Then we visited the robot bar—it was actually called the Bionic Bar but everyone called it the robot bar because ROBOTS made the drinks. 🙂 You would input the drink you wanted on the tablets on the tables (scan your room key or your wrist band) and then watch the stages of your order on the screens.

My margarita in production:

Our group had ordered just a few drinks here…

Our first formal night…

With friends Geoff and Michele…

And our first towel animal… (we only got two the entire week). 🙁

We are old and had been drinking all day…so we called it early again. 🙂

Day 1 – Embarkation 2018

I am really amazed at how simple and easy embarkation is, even when the cruise line is dealing with 6,000 people getting off the ship and 6,000 people getting on the ship. The lines weren’t long, nothing was terribly crowded, and it was all very efficient. We could not take pics inside the building, so this is all you get—us waiting for our group to be called to board:

Of course, the shout outs to buy things starts before you even get on the ship, with your first pictures being snapped on the way to the gangway, and you have to stroll past a mini shop with lanyards and a random assortment of last-minute items. It was originally just me and Tom, and then more peeps strolled by and we pulled them in…and then a few more…and a few more. We eventually just had to take the pic and be done with it, otherwise we would have been there for a half hour gathering more people.

My first goal upon entering the ship was to see just how quickly I could get my first margarita. And as it turns out there was a bar not 10 steps from where the gangway spit us out! WOOT!

Drink 2, immediately following drink 1.

Drink 3, immediately following drinks 1 and 2! We were determined to get our money’s worth out of our unlimited alcohol package! 🙂

While we were in there, random peeps strolled in and that was fun. We picked up our smart bands—I hate the nickel and diming aspect of it (they’re $5 each!) so I said I didn’t want one so Tom went and got his and I immediately succumbed once I saw how cool it was to order a drink with your wrist (it also unlocks your room). Then we just wandered the ship for awhile until we had our lunch reservation.

We may have stopped for a tiny bite of chili cheese fries because I LOVE CHILI CHEESE FRIES. Tom gave me crap about them until he tried them…and he went and got his own small plate.

More drinks! There are bars ALL OVER and there were really never any lines so it took less than five minutes to get drinks.

Signs on the elevator floors are a good way to know what day it is.

It started raining when we were heading to lunch on the Central Park level—it’s an actual open air park, so if it’s raining outside, it’s raining on the ship—and as we were lamenting the fact of having to walk in the rain, we noticed a box of umbrellas in the vestibule! Of course! They think of everything!

Lunch was at Jamie’s Italian (Jamie Oliver’s place).

We thought we were going to be eating by ourselves because we hadn’t been able to get a reservation with our group…but as soon as we walked in and asked if we could eat early (the place was almost empty), our group waved us over and we joined them! I think there were probably 25 or so of us in there! And add another drink to my tally—a peach bellini!

Then it was finally time to get in our room…so we have the obligatory picture of us on our balcony! And our view of the port!

And then Tom decided he needed a nap. I wandered the ship…

Then it was time for the sailaway—except we hadn’t planned too well for it and we didn’t have a big group together…but we all met up shortly afterward for our big group photo!!

Then there was a lot of wandering the ship and exploring… I was geeked to find Zoltar (if you don’t remember, it’s from the movie Big with Tom Hanks). I thought the kids would get a kick out of it, but it wasn’t working when we were there.

And then it was time for dinner.

Most of our group had some type of whiteboard on their doors so we could leave messages about where we were or what plans were…and people would leave you notes.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out at bars with friends…and then we called it a night pretty early since we’d been up since 4am!

We are both SO ready for our first real vacation in 12 years!

I didn’t enjoy getting up at 4a to catch the 6a Uber to the airport…but I love the start of a vacation!

Oh yeah, what are we doing? A 7-day Eastern Caribbean cruise with 58 of our friends. Well, we know most of the group going (either in person or online) but there are some we don’t know. The TiVo group has been cruising together for many years and this is the first time we’ve been able to join them. We are excited—we haven’t been on a real vacation (not to a family member’s house or for more than a weekend without the kids) since our last cruise in 2008. (Ooops! I’ve been saying 12 years but it was only 10.)

25 Additional Random Things

I keep thinking about my previous list of Random Things, and reading other people’s lists, and I wanted to have another go at it.

  1. Back in the day, I was sure I was going to write the next great American novel someday. I guess I still have time, but it seems much more of a pipe dream at this point in my life.
  2. Sometimes I think I want four or five kids, because I love having large family gatherings—and it’s what I’m used to. But I’m not sure I want to be pregnant that many times!
  3. I knew the night I met my husband that we would get married. It was love at first sight.
  4. Someday I will live in my dream house—a ranch with enough space for everything, a great party kitchen with professional appliances, and a hot tub. There’s more, but that’s the gist.
  5. We’ve been on two cruises and I love them. LOVE THEM LOVE THEM LOVE THEM! I would go on a cruise every other month if I could afford it.
  6. I would love to live by family for the rest of my life, but I just don’t think we can live in the cold anymore.
  7. I hope that I can be a good parent. Everyone assures me I will be, but I just don’t feel it yet.
  8. I could eat an entire box of Krispy Kreme Original donuts if given the opportunity. Especially if they were Hot & Fresh.
  9. My favorite salad is mixed greens with Craisins, toasted pecans, feta cheese, and Amish Dressing (a sweet mustard dressing).
  10. Sometimes I want to sell everything and just start over.
  11. I am a PC person (we have three), but would be willing to give a Mac a try if they weren’t so damn expensive.
  12. I’ve always wanted to see Jimmy Buffet in concert and he’s coming here in August. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
  13. I really want to travel around the world—one of my top places is Fiji, where we initially wanted to go for our honeymoon but never quite made it.
  14. I love music from the 50s and 60s. I guess it’s from growing up listening to it via my parents!
  15. I have never had a broken bone.
  16. I have been to the emergency room four times that I can remember: 1) when I jammed scissors into my hand when I was about seven or eight, 2) when I fell off my bike in high school, 3) when I sliced the tip of my finger off in college when working at Glen’s, and 4) when I fell down the stairs last year and twisted both my ankles.
  17. I love organization—storage containers/bins/baskets, shelving, labellers… Maybe because I’m a packrat as well?
  18. I hate my legs so rarely wear skirts or dresses unless they are ankle length. I hate shorts, too, but had to wear them in North Carolina to survive the summers.
  19. I miss reading. I couldn’t even tell you the last “real” book I read (real meaning NOT baby-related help books).
  20. I cannot believe our thermostat is set at 60 for a Michigan winter—and our heating bill is still $300.
  21. I just figured out that my numerology life path number is 5, which “suggests that you entered this plane with a highly progressive mindset, with the attitude and skills to make the world a better place.” Interesting.
  22. Someday I hope to have a job I truly enjoy. I can’t even imagine what that would be like. Heaven, maybe?
  23. I know I complain too much and am trying to get better about that. Or at least tell the same amount of “good” stories so people don’t think my life is ALL bad.
  24. I love love love my car, a 2001 Toyota Highlander purchased brand new a week before we got married. I would buy the same exact car in an instant, but the new Highlanders are NOT the same.
  25. I have a personalized license plate that says TRAVCTY. It was strange living in NC and having people know what it meant!

Day 8 – Sea Day

Our last sea day on our way home—how sad. Although having said that, we both agreed that eight days is almost too long (or at least it felt that way). So we agree that seven days is probably the prime cruising time.

First things first—we slept in, since we were up late the night before. Unfortunately, last night I started feeling sick after I finished journaling and tried to go to sleep—I only had three drinks, but I think I mixed too many liquors trying to decide what sounded good. And Tom had drunk a little too much so he finally slept in as well. He made it up in time to attend the debarkation meeting at 11.

We decided it was finally time to play mini golf—since that was one of the few “entertainment” things I actually wanted to do on the ship. Unfortunately, we chose the wrong day—a sea day is NOT the day to play mini golf, since it’s on the top deck and windy as hell. So we only played the three holes that were most sheltered from the wind. I also wanted to go down the waterslide, but Tom assured me it was NOTHING special and could really be avoided.

We just sort of hung around all day, running into friends and chatting, hitting up the wifi, and I think we even got in another nap—then right before dinner we had a little farewell get-together with some of our Cruise Critic friends. Then it was off to our last dinner, which interestingly was my most favorite meal of the whole week (not including the supper club dinner earlier in the week). Tom and I both had the New England Lobster and Crab Cake (Served with Herb Salad and Roasted Pepper Remoulade) which was really good, then I had the Caesar Salad (which was the same salad I’d been getting all week, but it just tasted better tonight) and Tom had the Heart of Iceberg Lettuce Salad Garnished with Florida Orange and Grapefruit Segments. For the main course, then I had the Neptune Platter (Fried Large Black Tiger Prawns, Calamari Rings and Breaded Fish Filet Served with Fried Potatoes and Roasted Bell Pepper Remoulade) which just hit the spot and was very good. Tom had the Tender Roasted Prime Rib of American Beef au Jus and a Baked Potato wit Traditional Toppings. Dessert was a Grand Marnier Souffle Served with Orange Vanilla Sauce which everyone just went gaga over, and while it was yummy, I am not a huge custard fan, so I let Tom finish it for me.

After dinner we went back to the room to start packing, as our luggage had to be out in the hallway by midnight, and we had plans to see the last show, Carnival Legends. Now, if you haven’t heard of this show, it’s made up of Carnival guests who won karaoke contests throughout the week—singing parts like Madonna, Garth Brooks, Britney Spears, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, and Frank Sinatra. We actually knew two people ibn the show—the Britney, who had done it before on another cruise and had such a fun time she wanted to do it again…and Elton, one of our friends who was completely drunk during karaoke and we goaded him into singing, and then we got him to agree to do the Legends show. Needless to say he hated us since he didn’t realize he was agreeing to a full-fledged performance on the main stage for the entire ship! So, our whole group was there to support him, sitting in the front row! It was an absolute riot!!

After the show, we sat and chatted and said some goodbyes, then we decided to hit the dance club one last time. On the way through the casino, I sat down with $1 at the penny slots and tripled my money in a few minutes—woohoo! I was still down overall for the week, but not by much. We didn’t stay too long at the dance club because we were exhausted…and they were playing sucky music. So it was back to the cabin to finish packing the odds and ends and then hitting the sheets.

Day 7 – Belize

Another early early morning due to an excursion, ugh. We were looking forward to it, of course, but man I hate early mornings, especially after late nights. Thank heavens for room service.

We were able to get on an earlier tender than we had hoped, so were off about 8am along with our new friends John and Erica (the couple from California that we met on the beach after ziplining), headed for our cave tubing excursion. We were a bit hungry so Tom and John went off to find us some food—and came back with a delicious assortment including two croissants, a piece of johnnycake (not cornbread, almost a biscuit), and a cinnamon roll…for a total of $2!

There were three guys running the cave-tubing show, and they were all a hoot. On the 35-45 minute drive to the caves, we got some comedy and local flavor along with a few history lessons. Oh, and a taste of a local beverage—cashew wine (jokingly called the poor man’s whiskey). It was interesting, but nothing I needed (or wanted) to bring home with me. They always asked if there were any questions, so I asked if there were restrooms, and they said no, they had “quicklies”—you want to quickly go in and quickly come out. And when someone asked if there were snakes, he said oh yes, Belize has something like 58 varieties of snakes, 35 of which are poisonous. “Just kidding, just kidding.” The whole 40 minutes was like that, it was really fun.

Once we got to the caves, we were handed headlamps, tubes, and life jackets, and were led down the trail toward the river. They said it was going to be about a 30-minute walk, so we were all surprised when we hit the river after no more than five minutes. Yeah, that was just the starting point—we had to cross the river to get to the trail. They also wanted us to get wet so we’d get the feel for the water and wouldn’t be surprised later. We were all a little shocked at how cold it was—on the bus, someone had asked what the water temperature was and he said it was “refreshing” and when pressed, said between 72 and 78 degrees. MY ASS. That water was nowhere near 72-78 degrees, LOL. Maybe 70 at the tops, I’m guessing. But we all got in and some even jumped off a high rock formation.

Then it was back on the trail, where we got an unexpected surprise about 15 minutes in…the guides told the women to drop their tubes, and they would carry them the rest of the way! (I had read in their reviews that they did that, but I didn’t realize it was an all-the-time thing.) At first I was like “I can carry my own damn tube” but as the trail got a bit rougher, I was glad I didn’t have to worry about it—especially with my ankles. As it was, I was barely taking in the surroundings—I was more concerned with watching my every step, as the trail we were on was all dirt, big rocks, and roots. And a stupid kid in front of me kept shuffling her feet and kicking stones into my path. GRRR. I finally made a break for it when there was room to pass. Anyway, the guides all looked like the Michelin man—each carrying like five or six tubes, and flying over the trails with ease. They would stop us to point out interesting trees like the one that produces the avocado and one that helps prevent the onset of a poisonous snake bite if you chew the bark.

At about 25 minutes we hit a fork in the path and they told us that the cruise ship excursions took the path to the right—and they only got to go through one cave. If we wanted to walk about another six minutes, we would be able to tube through two caves. Of course, we opted for the additional six minutes. When we finally reached the destination/starting point, we were split up into groups of about nine and we all kerplunked into the river and were tethered in a human chain—you tucked your feet under the armpits of the person in front of you.

It was actually a little chilly going down river—you were not in the sun at all (because you were underground in the caves) and your butt was in the water! The guides would point out neat things, and keep us moving in slower water or steer us in the right direction if we started to get off course, but the most important thing they did was yell BUTTS UP at us when the river got too shallow (it varied from 28 FEET to 4 INCHES) so when they yelled BUTTS UP, it meant get your butt up out of the water, at least higher than the tube bottom, otherwise you would scrape your butt on the rocks. There were a few times we did hit bottom—you could hear the rocks scraping on the tube—but we never got fully stuck. Butts up was hard because you had to pretty much lay flat on top of the tube, which sort of unlocked your feet a little from the person in front of you, but you had to keep hold of them so you didn’t come unattached…meanwhile trying to hold your head up out of the water—unless you wanted a cold, wet head. Oh, and the head lamps didn’t do much to help us see into the vast darkness, but were actually more for the guides to see where we were and to keep track of us.

Of course the guides were just as much of a riot as they were on the bus, and they made the whole trip worthwhile. They definitely appeared to love their jobs and take pride in what they did. On the way back to town we stopped at a place to get snacks and t-shirts, and I actually had an orange Fanta out of a glass bottle (we also both got shirts). The strangest yet neatest thing about this trip? You didn’t pay until you were done—and satisfied! Which, we have to say, we were COMPLETELY satisfied. In addition to getting a better excursion for about half of what Carnival was charging, I am sure we got much more personality and personalized service as well. Definitely worth the money and we would recommend Cave-Tubing.com to anyone.

Once back in town, we only had a short amount of time to do some shopping. We dreamily priced Hearts-On-Fire solitaire earrings and a necklace at Diamonds International. When we were done choking on the prices, we searched for some affordable souvenirs but nothing hit the spot so we just went back to the ship where we did our usual quick lunch and then relaxed on the balcony while the ship left port (it was a neat, meandering course, as we had to wind around the protected barrier reefs).

Soon it was time for dinner… and another few starters for me, LOL. I had to have the Thai Beef Salad (Sliced Prime Beef, Onions and Peppers, Marinated with Oriental Dressing) and the Crepes Filled with Spinach and Ricotta Cheese (Parmesan and Cold Pressed Olive Oil Dressing, Cucumber Confit). I also wanted the Lasagna Bolognese which sounded DIVINE (Baked Casserole with Layers of Pasta, Lean Ground Beef, Tomatoes, Spinach and Mozzarella, Served on a Lake of Pomodoro Sauce). About half our table thought the same thing—except when it arrived, it was NOT nearly as good as we had hoped. It wasn’t horrible tasting, but it was all ground meat with barely any tomatoes or sauce—just very strange. (Many thanks to Earl, our headwaiter, who told me ahead of time I didn’t want it for my main course, and to try it as a starter instead. He rocks.) Tom also had the Crepes for a starter. We both had the Mixed Garden and Field Greens Salad.

For our main course, Tom had Coq au Vin de Chambertin—Supreme of Chicken Marinated and Cooked in Red Burgundy Wine Garnished with Silver Onions, Mushrooms and Wine Dough Crisps. I had the Blackened Fillet of Tilapia, Topped with Shrimp and Seafood, Served over Jambalya Rice. Tom said his was good, and mine was okay—the best part was actually the seafood topping and the unmentioned very-thinly-sliced fried okra strips.

I was off my game again, and forgot to take a picture of the dessert menu, but I had some Apple and Nuts wrapped in Phyllo thing, with vanilla sauce and ice cream, which was probably my most favorite dessert so far (aside from the vanilla ice cream in the buffet line). Tom had some chocolate chocolaty chocolate fudge cake thing, which was just a little rich and chocolaty.

After dinner we took photos with our friends, we walked through the casino on the way back to our room, and I proceeded to lose another $5—but I had fun doing it:

Then it was back to the room to change and relax a bit while waiting for our late-dinner-seating friends to finish eating. Everyone was having fun drinking and chatting, except me (the alcohol just wasn’t going down well). Then it was off to the Lido Deck for the Midnight Mexican Buffet—and a live band. It was quite fun—we were just hanging out and chatting with all our new friends. Everyone (except me) was getting a little drunk, and they were all a riot. I actually called it a night before everyone else, because what little alcohol I had had wasn’t settling well and I just wanted to go to bed. And I was thrilled to know I could sleep in as late as I wanted the following morning, as it was out last sea day and we didn’t have to be anywhere!