We surprised the kids with their first cruise! It was a 5-day Caribbean cruise on Norwegian's Encore. Kim accidentally slipped with Hannah and I gave one too many clues to Willow on the drive down, but Hunter and Owen had no idea. It was fun to see them figure it out!
Stepping onto their first cruise ship!
The first of MANY selfies that my family obliged for.
The first of many desserts :)
Setting sail from Miami!
We were scheduled for our first stop to be at the Norwegian-owned island of Great Stirrup Cay. We had an excursion planned for ziplining. Unfortunately due to something with the water depth, we weren't able to stop there and were rerouted to Nassau, Bahamas. Not a bad option! Thankfully we were refunded for our excursion but did not have time to figure out a new excursion.
We enjoyed wandering around the shops near the port.
Owen bought this shark tooth necklace and he's literally worn it every day since then (typing this post in mid-April). He even puts it back on in the evening after he's taken his shower and keeps it on for story/reading time, then takes it off to go to bed. He has a tan line from it too!
Willow and Hannah found pretty necklaces too!
The true Caribbean feel!
One of the street vendors was carving wood and let Willow give it a try too!
The water was gorgeous!!
Cruising with the kids was a bit different than our Alaskan cruise over the summer ;) but was still fun!
We definitely supported the locals on the purchase of this drink!
There was plenty of time to kick up our feet and relax!
Grandpa wanted us to have one sit-down dinner together while on the cruise. It was a 2-hour test of patience for us all! ;)
Willow taking a picture of her dessert :)
The best dessert I had all week! (and I tried plenty!!)
One of our favorite things from the cruise was this "Jungle" musical. We saw it twice! They even gave out free beer before the show began!
When we first walked into our room we freaked out a little only seeing two beds. Much to our surprise, there were two beds that folded down from the ceiling!
We stuck with the buffet for the majority of our meals. Everyone found something they liked and there was no waiting...and always a great view!
This lasted about 3 minutes since the wind kept blowing the ball out of control (combined with their amateur level of play to begin with). The only ball available quickly got sucked under the glass wall and dropped into the ocean :(
There was a virtual reality place you could go and pay per game or pay by the hour. Owen was the only one interested and he enjoyed it for about 30 minutes before feeling nauseous. He was also having difficulty seeing well with fog on his glasses.
This "finger coaster" was really cool. You designed the roller coaster with your finger, then sat on the ride to go on the ride that you designed!
Hunter's relaxed posture and Owen clutching onto the sides is a true reflection of how they each feel about roller coasters!
We enjoyed playing laser tag twice! This time we played adults (+ Willow) vs kids.
We watched "Polar Express" poolside while Owen stayed in the pool the whole time!
Our second stop was supposed to be in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. We weren't given a reason, but were rerouted to Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Again, our excursion was reimbursed but sent us into a panic of trying to find something else since we had a bit more notice this time. Since we hadn't gotten onto a beach or in the water, our goal was to find an excursion that would allow us to do that. Who could be disappointed with Jamaica though??
We signed up for a cooking class with beach time excursion which was interesting. We made jerk chicken with rice and cabbage coleslaw with a dough dessert (I forgot the name). Nana and Grandpa were in the time slot before us and warned us how spicy the chicken was. They advised us to put very little seasoning. It was an interesting experience to learn the ingredients of everything. In theory, you ate the piece of chicken you prepared (hence the "Chicken 21" sign on Willow). The grill master got a little off, though, and as we came to get ours (one of the last ones), they were all very dark with seasoning. The kids were champs, though, and gave it a try.
Chris got called up to the front during part of the presentation and was told to dance to the music. Little did the man know that he had called up the wrong guy and no dancing was performed ;)
(Little did we know, drinks were not included!)
We had a small roped off area to get in the water. The temperature was nice and the water was beautiful!
Pictures just don't quite capture the color of the water!
More happy purchases to remember the trip!
Desserts whenever you want them!! This was a nice way to cool off after being out in the 80+ temps!
Communication with family ended up being a bit of a challenge. Cell phones didn't work. There was a chat option on the cruise app, but it wasn't working. Kim and I were sitting next to each other and messaging and it wouldn't go through. We had white boards to put on our door to try and communicate but our rooms weren't together and it didn't work out logistically to go up and down so much to say where you were going next. We all pretty much ate in the buffet for each meal and were able to touch base about plans for the day. It was a good mix of "everyone together" and "family" time.
We watched a cupcake decorating presentation and the kids got a free cupcake!
We did see some dolphins! It was a fun surprise!
When you get up early and dress in the dark, sometimes you end up with your pants on backwards!
Laser tag: Boys vs Girls
A few "official" pictures from the cruise:
Here's a "quick" video of highlights!
When we flew back to Charlotte, it was 15-degrees and very windy. Thankfully we survived the trek to the car in our hoodies. On our drive home, the car said it was 1-degree outside. Chris filled up with gas and it was 4-degrees. It was quite a shocking jolt back to reality! An 80-degree temperature swing in one day!
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