FirstAnthem

Day 5.....Sea Day!

This day began with another pair of lazy children and another pair of early bird, super fun parents. Steve got up early and got coffee and walked the ship. You never know what you will see around the ship in the early morning hours.

Maybe these photos are of one of you readers out there! And you can explain the bathrobes and party hats at 6:30 am!

Then I got up and we had breakfast together, which became our usual routine.

Not a bad breakfast view

By this time in the trip, Jack had all but given up on Flowrider and started climbing the rock wall more and more. There were still lines, but not as bad. He climbed in the mornings and afternoons and started getting pretty good!

Steve and Jack tried the Dreamworks trivia this morning. He was texting me looking for answers...I guess we should’ve brushed up on Dreamworks before the cruise—they only got one right!

Then came lunch in the MDR. We loved our lunches on Sea Days. The relative quiet in the dining room, it was easy for Sophie to order lunch, and the salad bar....I’ve been home for two weeks now and I’m still waiting for a nice waiter to hand me a beautifully tossed and dressed salad. Sigh.

We loved these windows. We were so close to the water, it was a nice feeling and so calm. The kids really looked forward to these lunches.

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Reallyitsmema—from what I remember, the conversation we had about celiac and the windjammer was about the fact that someone with celiac can’t safely eat from the gluten free buffet you suggested. I was never opposed to the Windjammer itself, I just knew my daughter couldn’t eat from the gluten free buffet safely. On our cruise, the gluten free buffet was in the middle of everything, and while it is separate, it is not well marked, so everyone was getting food from that buffet as if it was just a regular food station. That’s a cross contamination nightmare. The chefs were delightful in the WJ, and made my daughter contamination-free food from the kitchen.

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We looked all around the craft market they had there to get an idea of what we wanted, and planned on buying things after our excursion. The people were so friendly and nice, happy to chat and let us look around. My kids loved shopping in this atmosphere, with everyone’s crafts and wood carvings and souvenirs all laid out.

Here is Sophie buying a wooden elephant. Garfield, our new friend in Jamaica, is carving her name into it. Jack bought a wooden sword from him and got his name carved too. This was after the excursion, but I thought I’d include it here.

There were a lot of people on the excursion. We filled a huge bus and they had to get another bus for the overflow. Not our favorite atmosphere, but I get the sense that’s what ship sponsored excursions are like.

When we chose river tubing and adventure falls, we really wanted the adventure falls part of Good Hope Estate, but there wasn’t a way to just go there and do what you wanted. There is so much to do there! You had to pick an all day pass, or zip lining, or river tubing, and the adventure falls was included in that. Adventure falls is a huge, warm swimming pool, with a water slide and waterfalls and this beautiful set of low waterfalls that you can climb up and over to get to the big falls. I knew my kids would love this part. But the river tubing had to come first! Which was totally fine—we just really wanted time for both....you see where this is going?

The bus ride was awesome. Just driving through Jamaica, seeing farms and buildings and homes and the vegetation was so eye opening. And our driver was really funny, talking about the narrow roads, and if we get uneasy, please don’t change his name to Dear Jesus or Oh Crap. “My name is Leo!” The kids got a kick out of him.

Good Hope Estate is so beautiful. I wanted to stay there all day.

They got us set up with locker rental. I opted not to bring my phone on the tubes, but it was so calm I totally should have. So I have no pics of the actual tubing. We got all our stuff put away, and I sprayed almost an entire bottle of full test bug spray on the kids. Pre-cruise, when I was reading our paperwork, I spotted the word Zika. Uh, what now? Zika? I’m usually a natural product type of mom, but my kids were covered in DEET for this adventure. Hopefully the twitching will stop soon. ; )

The guides got us our life preservers and we started the very bumpy drive to the tubing area. It was on an open sided safari type vehicle. They guys were hilarious, hanging off the sides, whooping and hollering. Jack adored these guys. The people next to us in the vehicle were also from Rochester NY. Small world.

Once we were at the tubes, I got the sense that this wasn’t going to be the most efficient activity. The guys were messing around, being funny, taking their time dividing us into groups. I was laughing along, but slowly a little dread started creeping in....what time is it anyway? How long is this going to take?

They started cleaning off the tubes, singing songs....they aren’t in a rush here.

We finally started tubing. You are all connected and the guide of your group paddles to take you down the river. There are 10 tubes to a group. There were three groups. The Martha Brae river is so beautiful! Cool, clean water, the foliage is amazing, so much bamboo....it was gorgeous. But those tubes move S-L-O-W. And these guys are comedians, telling jokes, singing songs. They are really great. But at one point, we were sitting still while they were joking and talking together. And I, being the uptight northerner that I am, started looking at my watch! Visions of that beautiful adventure falls was slipping slowly away....

Reviews I had read before the cruise had a common theme....”we didn’t have enough time to enjoy everything...” “we would’ve liked to have time at adventure falls....”

These guys were totally in the moment, enjoying their surroundings. It’s true what they say about being on “island time”. I have to work on my ability to be on island time. I’m afraid it’s not in my DNA.

At one point we came to a swimming hole area where it was deep and you could get out of your tube and swim. Jack really wanted to. I wanted to stay in my nice cozy tube, but he didn’t want to get in alone, and I didn’t want to hold him back. The look on Steve’s face told me he was no way getting out and swimming. So I did it, for Jack. And for my Dad. My Dad passed away in January of this year. We were extremely close and his death has broken my heart. He was adventurous and fun-loving. Every vacation we took when I was a kid was full of adventure. He always got in the pool, got in the canoe, went on the rides. He would’ve gotten out of his tube for me. So I did it for Jack. And you know what? It was the best part of the whole darn day.

When we got back to land, we walked up a rocky path towards adventure park. Is that a water slide I see??? I checked my watch—GASP. We had about 15 minutes left of the excursion!!! I knew it! So we had a fast forward version of adventure falls.

My Dad would’ve jumped off the waterfall, too

Waterslide was fun!

We had one time down the slide, one jump off the falls, and one climb through the terraced falls, and there was Steve with towels for us. We had to RUN to the bus. It was a little disorganized, and there were so many people piling onto buses to go back. Others were there zip lining and doing other things and we were all leaving at once. Not ideal. But we were thrilled with our adventure in Jamaica, so we were cool with it. Kind of. Haha. (I was still dreaming of the well-oiled, efficient Labadee....)

We got back to the port and the kids bargained for their souvenirs and had a great time shopping. Then we ran back to the ship because we had early traditional dining and we were late already. We told them the night before so they said it was completely fine.

We changed and ran to the dining room, to be greeted with a smile and a wonderful dinner!

After dinner we went to the diving show. We liked it, but didn’t really understand the plot, if there was one? I didn’t really mind that I didn’t get it. I liked the diving. The kids wanted to “get it” so they didn’t like the show as much as I did.

The couple behind us staring at the camera just crack me up.

Tomorrow is another sea day....

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Day 4– Ya Mon, it’s Jamaica day!

We went back and forth on doing an excursion at the Falmouth Jamaica port. I read so many negative things about it, and about the danger and crime in the area. I asked for opinions on these boards, and talked to a friend who had cruised before, and decided to take the plunge and schedule an excursion for us. I am SO GLAD we made that decision. It was one of our favorite days. And now that we’ve taken one cruise, we all realized we cruise for the ports. The port days were, for us, hands down the best days of our cruise.

So we chose the River Tubing and Adventure Falls at Great Hope Estate. It was through the ship, and Chukka Tours sponsored the excursion. I liked the sounds of it because it was about 20 minutes from the port. Dunn’s River Falls, a popular choice, is about a 45 min to an hour drive, and we weren’t up for that.

Originally we scheduled an 11 am tour, but our excursion tickets said 1:45 pm. A visit to everyone’s favorite place, Guest Services, solves the mystery—there was only one tour going that day and they put everyone in the 1:45 slot. Gotta love the packed to the brim RC excursions. (Sense the sarcasm?)

So we had a wide open morning. The kids slept late, which was becoming a trend. Steve and I were waking up at 6 every day, ready to get to it. We didn’t want to waste one minute. Another way the kids were cramping our vacation style. We finally gave up on them and went walking on the track, went up to the top deck, got breakfast, while they snored away.

Jamaica sighting!

A Disney ship was docked here today as well

They’re awake! Ready to grab some lunch before getting off the ship.

We got lunch in the Windjammer. We ordered Sophie’s GF lunch the night before with our head waiter so it would be a shorter wait for her food. It worked out great! And she did get her sandwich and fries instead of two sandwiches today haha.

We got off the ship with enough time before the excursion to walk around and shop. The port area was very nice with a lot of shops, but our kids liked the craft market the best.

LOOK! A FOUNTAIN!

We’re in Jamaica!

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Thank you everyone for your kind words and comments! I’m enjoying reliving our great vacation and hearing about yours as well. Looking forward to posting about our day in Jamaica tomorrow! :)

Kennc—that’s cool about the family rock wall time with the boardwalk balcony room! Jack would’ve loved that. Once he’s big enough to do stand up, he’d love that advanced surfing time! For now, our only strategy for our next cruise is to get out there 30 minutes before it opens and wait and expect to only go once, or skip a port. Although their favorite part of the cruise is the ports, so not sure that will ever happen!

Haha! My son has always loved meeting characters for some reason. I do too, actually! Lol

Kennc—that’s so funny that you say you zigged when the masses zagged, because that is the exact phrase that kept running through my head the entire trip. “Must zig when others zag!” We attempted the zig zag strategy, but in terms of the Flowrider and rock wall, it just didn’t work, at least not for us. And at 4 pm on Jamaica day, we were just finishing our river tubing at Great Hope Estate! (More on that later!!)

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JaniceB—we had a spacious ocean view balcony. It was cabin 7268, port side. It was right near the stairs and elevator and it was a superb location. We didn’t experience any noise from the stairs and elevator, and it was so convenient to be right there, instead of having a cabin in the middle of a looooong hallway. It was tight for 4, but we made it work and really loved having a balcony.

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Day 3, Labadee, cont’d—

After lunch, Steve and I were ready to get off the ship and go back to Labadee to check out the beaches.

Us: “Ok! Let’s pack our bag and hit the beach!”

Kids: “Um?” That pause is never a good sign. “Can we stay on the ship instead?”

We just looked at each other. Surely they can’t be serious? They were. They had had enough sun and wanted to relax. Not sit on a beach relax, but go to our cabin relax. GAH. Not what we expected, but sigh, that’s what we did. I have learned, after 19 years of parenting, that if your kid verbalizes to you that they need down time, they really need it.

So with heavy hearts, we went back to the cabin. Sophie decided to bring her book to the pool deck, so we at least had a view of beautiful Haiti while relaxing. Jack wanted to listen to his audiobook on our balcony in the shade and quiet and watch the parasailing excursions out on the ocean. Steve and I traded off sitting with each of them so we’d each have a chance to sit on the pool deck. And we texted each other, agreeing that someday we need to ditch the kids and take a cruise just the two of us! This was the first of a few times this vacation that the kids were cramping our style! More on that later. ; )

After some chill time, Jack was ready to try Flowrider again. And so were the other 2,000 kids who all came back from Labadee by 3 pm when Flowrider started up again! He got there right at 3 and there were already at least 20 kids in line on each side. (When it’s crowded, they split the Flowrider in half with a blow up divider.) He stood in the hot sun for what felt like an eternity, but which was actually about 45 minutes, to get one turn.

At dinner that night in the MDR, fun was in full swing. The wait staff all danced around the dining room to fun music, then they asked everyone to get up out of their seats to do....the chicken dance!! I have no photos because I was too busy dancing, and laughing at the sight of everyone, but honestly, I’m not sure Jack smiled more than that night at dinner.

After dinner, Steve and Jack walked the ship doing Jack’s new found favorite activity: getting his photo taken. There are so many photographers on the ship, ready and willing to pose you 50 different ridiculous ways and take your photo. Jack finds this fun, I don’t mind it, Steve and Sophie hate it!

Our photo folder by the end of the cruise was FULL of photos of mostly Jack, but some of Jack and Steve, all over the ship. Sophie and I stopped to look at them one time and were doubled over laughing. One was Steve and Jack in BARE FEET sitting on the floor....it was just so funny, knowing what Steve must’ve been thinking right then. What we do for our kids, man.

Jack’s other favorite activity on the ship (besides Flowrider, whose lines had soured him at this point) was meeting the Dreamworks characters. This was so fun, and honestly, hassle free! It’s not like Disney where you stand in LINE for hours to meet a character. It was much more casual and easy! Jack liked messing with them, faking them out on a high five. It was fun.

These character appearances were in the daily cruise compass, but a couple of times we happened upon them by chance.

Footnote about the Flowrider lesson above: it was $79 for a group lesson. Jack’s group was 6 people, and he got two turns in the hour. They might let as many as 8 in a group, I’m not sure. Minimum is 4. I’d do it again if I knew it would be a group of 4. Not a 6 or 8.

Stay tuned for JAMAICA tomorrow...!!!

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Still on my jet ski high haha

This was a perfect morning. Such happy family memories. (It made us miss our oldest son, however!)

The view from our table at lunch. TIP! If you eat on the ship on Labadee day, you have the Windjammer practically to yourselves!

Today we asked for the chef and ordered Sophie a gluten free turkey sandwich on a bun and gluten free fries. What she got was a bun with lettuce and tomato and mayo, and also a turkey club sandwich on GF bread with mayo. No fries. Just a miscommunication, no big deal. We had a good laugh over how they thought she’d want two sandwiches like that. When we inquired, they said it would take 30 more minutes for gluten free fries. We passed. Sophie was fine with that.

Up next....the rest of our Labadee day! (Off to pick up the kiddos from school....)

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Day 3, Labadee, cont’d

Labadee was gorgeous. Perfect weather, beautiful surroundings.

I love fountains. Big or small, wherever we are, after the hundreds of fountains we have seen on our vacations, I still somehow end up shocked and thrilled at the sight. “LOOK! A FOUNTAIN!” My kids are used to it. Now I don’t even have to say anything, they see one and automatically go sit by it for the picture they know is coming.

We went right to the jet ski area and this place was like a well oiled machine. So organized. Totally punctual. My kinda place. Here is a view of the jet ski area:

So pretty here. And it only took about 20 minutes for me to finally get a picture without people in it.

They take everyone into a small room for an instructional video. I was sweating bullets at this point because I was terrified to be minutes away from driving a jet ski. In the ocean. I took the video very seriously, and everyone else was asleep, I believe. Then they ask for the experienced riders to raise their hands, and they put you in order according to how fast you think you’ll go. I just raised my hand straightaway and said “I’ll be last!”

They set us all up on the jet skis, and I literally could not remember any of the video. Sophie remembered a lot, thank god, so she was coaching me. And I became BFFs with the instructor who would be in the back, Keno. He was so confident in my skills. Haha, oh Keno, you have no idea.

We took off and I was happy at the 4 mph idling speed. Keno wasn’t having it. I sped up so as not to completely embarrass my family. Aside from the fact that I was screaming “KEEEEENOOOO” at the top of my lungs the entire time, it was actually fun! I was stressed and scared and exhilarated all at the same time. And what a lesson for Sophie. She saw me overcome true fear. And see my pride after it was over.

These two show offs were at the front of the pack the entire time!

At one point on the jet ski tour, two Haitian men came up on kayaks with small things to sell. I had read about this and was prepared. Sophie chose a pink carved turtle. It was beautiful. We bargained a little on price (we ended up paying $12) and the man was so nice and gracious. It was a great, unique experience for Sophie to do shopping from a jet ski! It’s her favorite part of trips—shopping!

After we parked the jet skis (not easily for me, I might add) we decided to go back to the boat for lunch. The previous night at dinner, our headwaiter gave us the opportunity to order Sophie a GF lunch that he’d have available for her on Labadee, but we opted to not order it and come back to the ship to eat. Seemed easier, and that was her preference, so that’s what we did! On the way back to the ship we took some photos...I’ll post those in a separate post.

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Day 3 — Labadee!

We woke up bright an early and caught our first glimpse of Labadee, Haiti

I can’t describe the excitement we all had of seeing our first port. Since the extent of my worldly travels consisted of the World Showcase in Epcot, this was a big day!

Our day started at 8am with a Flowrider lesson for my son. Ok, wait. I’m getting sick of all this son and daughter business. I wasn’t using their names because I noticed a lot of other reviewers not using their kids names, so I followed suit. But not saying their names and repeating son and daughter is even annoying me, so their names are Sophie and Jack. Whew. I feel better.

Ok, so 8 am, Flowrider lesson for Jack. He got the hang of the Flowrider quickly the first couple of days, but we signed him up for a group lesson to teach him a little more, but mostly to give him more turns on the Flowrider than he was getting with the ridiculous lines. He was maybe going once an hour, and that was generous. So we expected him to get many turns in an hour group lesson of 6 people. Wrong. He went twice. It was only 6 people, but each person got lengthy turns. If the people are falling a lot, it takes time to get back up, start over, get your balance, etc. So it wasn’t everything we wanted in terms of frequency of turns, but it was a great experience getting the one on one attention from the teachers. These two, Vladimir and Jade, were amazing. Here’s a few pics:

Vladimir was excellent. Jack loved him. He worked the rock wall too, and was so great with the kids.

Jade was excellent too. She had a real rapport with the kids as well.

Joking around after the lesson. You can’t beat those beautiful hills in the background!

After the lesson we changed and got everything together for Labadee! We had a 10 am jet ski excursion planned!

When we were choosing excursions for Labadee, I imagined Sophie and I would grab a nice shady spot on the beach and Steve (aka Hubs) and Jack would go jet skiing. Then Sophie, my quiet, calm child says “I’d like to go jet skiing!” Oh shoot. That means guess who will have to drive. A jet ski. No bueno. But I took one for the team and signed us all up for jet skiing.

Off the boat and officially in Haiti!

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Gatordad—my husband just made a great point. Next year, your kids will still be small. Too small for the zip line, Flowrider, rock wall...that’s where we encountered most of the frustrating lines. Your kids will love the carousel on the Boardwalk which never seemed crowded to me. The ship will be crowded and full of kids, and the pools will be insane, but you won’t have the lines I mentioned to contend with!

Gatordad and Lawstuff—we found the crowds and lines did interfere with our full enjoyment of the cruise. I know cruises pretty much always sail full, but the amount of kids on the cruise was unreal. Maybe that’s why it felt so crowded? Don’t get me wrong, I like kids! I have three! But it was definitely overwhelming. I read before our cruise so many people saying even with 6000 passengers, Oasis never felt crowded. That must be because they weren’t there on spring break! And Gatordad, yes, the lines were off-putting enough to steer us away from a spring break cruise. We already booked a cruise for our President’s week break in February next year. It’s still a school break, which we are unfortunately tied to, but not everyone gets an entire week off for President’s week, so we are crossing our fingers. We booked on Adventure to see if maybe we are smaller ship people. Time will tell!

Sea day, cont’d.....

My daughter and I relaxed on one of the sundecks in the afternoon. The choice of chairs was slim. About half of the chairs were actually occupied. The other half had towels on them...the infamous chair hogs at work! We didn’t mind, really. We found a couple of chairs with a view of the ocean, which is all we really wanted anyway! Not a prime location, but we were on a cruise! That’s what mattered.

After dinner in the MDR (it was formal night—somehow I don’t have a picture!) we walked around the ship and happened upon Central Park—our favorite part of the ship!

We were in bed early....the next day is Labadee!

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First full day at sea!

We woke up bright and early ready to see what our first sea day had to offer.

We knew from the lines we had on embarkation day that this sea day would probably be more of the same. It was a recurring theme throughout the week. That was the one frustrating part for us—the lines. I think it was because it was a spring break cruise and there were 2,000 kids on board! They all wanted to do the same thing at the same time!

We got ready for the day quickly and headed out to the Flowrider. No one was in line yet so we played a little mini golf and ping pong. Little did we know that ping pong would be so hard to come by throughout the week. Every time hubs and son went back the tables were full, or there were no paddles or all the ping pong balls were crushed!

The Flowrider line was starting so my son hopped in line and my daughter and I got in line to do the wristband/waiver at the Flowrider desk.

TIP! Get in line early on embarkation day to get your waiver settled and get an activity wristband. Even if you sign the waivers pre cruise online, you have to go to the Flowrider desk and get a wristband. Child and parent need to be present. Many many people didn’t know about this, and stood in line for the zip line or Flowrider and when they got to the front had to go get in the line at Flowrider desk for the waiver and wristband! The lines here to get the wristbands are huge and lengthy, so do it ASAP when you board!

Only his second time on the Flowrider! He loved it.

However....the LINES. Oh my goodness, it was unbearable. He did one turn on it this morning, then didn’t want to stand in the line that had formed while he was on.

Sweet daughter and I decided to try the zip line while my son was on the Flowrider.

TIP! To ride the zip line you must be wearing sneakers. Not sandals or flip flops or even Keens sandals. Many people kept getting out of line for not having the right footwear. You also have to be a certain height and weight, and they do have a scale and weigh you! You have to be 75 lbs minimum. Can’t remember the height.

Then it was on to rock climbing!!

TIP! You must be wearing socks to rock climb and you cannot be wearing a wet bathing suit. They will send you away. Some learned the hard way. Waiting in line and not wearing the right thing.

All this activity and figuring stuff out made us hungry! We ate in the Main Dining Room for lunch. It was FANTASTIC. They have a menu to order from, or a big salad bar and buffet area. Or, you can order something from the menu and get the buffet! The salad bar is fantastic—you tell them what you want and they make the salad for you. It is absolutely delish. They had good GF choices too. My daughter got the shrimp risotto for every MDR lunch we had!

After lunch my son decided to go to Adventure Ocean. He had a good experience the first night and they were doing activities he liked. He didn’t last too long at AO though because it was so crowded. Over 60 kids in a room not much bigger than a classroom. He said he spent most of the time waiting for a turn. More waiting! It was a recurrent theme all week.

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Gatordad—I’m glad you’re enjoying it! Yes, you’re right about the pizza. It wasn’t great, but she ate half of it! She was happy to be doing something like someone without celiac would do their first night on a cruise!

I also forgot to mention above, part of the blur of the afternoon, I’m remembering now, included my daughter and I tracking down GF ice cream in the Windjammer. (Again with the Windjammer!) She was so hot and just wanted a cool dessert. And wouldn’t you know it, they were so helpful, even in the midst of the crazy afternoon, and she got a huge bowl of chocolate ice cream! Don’t be afraid to ask—they are a wonderful staff. And sometimes maybe they can’t make something happen, but you know they will try their hardest.

Thank you for all the nice comments! I’d reply to each one individually, but honestly, I have no idea how. Lol. Just figuring out how to post pictures has sent me over the edge! 😂

Embarkation Day!

None of us could sleep the night before the cruise. We were so excited to embark on this first ever kind of trip. This was our first time to any type of island, first time out of the country, except for Canada, so this was a big deal!

We weren’t sure how to approach embarkation day...the timing getting to the port, etc. But it went really smoothly, so apparently we did it right! We arrived at Port Canaveral at 10am. After unloading bags to porter, we got in line for security at 10:12. We got up to security at 10:21. We got in the check-in line at 10:34. Completed check-in at 10:42. Then we sat and waited until they began calling people to board at 11! If only we were in a suite....we would’ve boarded at 11! Maybe someday. For now, we were lowly Green group, no crown and anchor status. Woo hoo! Green group called at 11:16! Got the obligatory photo taken at 11:21, and officially boarded the ship at 11:26!

Upon boarding, we didn’t know which end was up, but there were so many people ready and willing to help. We found the MDR so we could talk to the maitre d about our daughter’s celiac. We were also able to make our reservation at Giovanni’s at this time. They had a table set up right there. Doing all of this took from 11:30 until about 11:50. Then we needed to figure out lunch.

I swore when I was planning our embarkation day that we WOULD NOT go to the Windjammer on embarkation day. Would. Not. Well you know what they say about the best laid plans....

Somehow we ended up in the Windjammer for lunch. I don’t even know how it happened. One minute I thought we were headed to Park Cafe, and the next minute I was standing in the windjammer. Determined 11 year old with a better sense of direction than an almost 50 year old always wins. Haha.

So I decided to make the best of it. I asked for a chef for my daughter and out came the cheeriest, nicest chef, ready to make her anything she wanted. She’s not hard to please. “Burger and fries, please?” That was all she needed to say. Then I tracked down hubs and my determined 11 year old, and what was this, a table by the window? And the next thing I knew my daughter’s lunch appeared, delivered by the cheery chef:

Once we left windjammer about 12:30/12:45, there was a line to get in. Ahhhh, there’s the crowd! So my advice: timing is everything.

After lunch we were like fish out of water. We didn’t know what to do first. We registered our son for Adventure Ocean (oh look! another line! This would become a theme) Then we went to our room (by now it was after 1) and dropped our carry ons and my son changed into a swimsuit. Hubs and son headed for Flowrider. Whatever my daughter and I did for the next two hours is beyond me. It was a blur. Hubs was texting me trying to tell me where they were, we walked from one end of the ship to the other, kept getting turned around, walking in circles. Not the best use of time, but we had a lot of laughs!

Fast forward to late afternoon, we got our luggage and started to unpack. Best things we ever brought: our clothesline, an over the door organizer and strong magnet hooks. I used the magnet hooks to hold up the over the door organizer on the wall. We used it to hold bathing suits, goggles, sunglasses, socks, etc etc. With four people in a balcony cabin, it was tight. Not impossible, but tight. This organizer and the strong hooks made a huge difference in storage.

Our dinner in the MDR that night was great! We had early traditional dining. It was smooth sailing, the food was great, we had a really nice first dinner.

That night, my son decided to go to Adventure Ocean. We hung out with our daughter and decided to check out Sorrentos for some gluten free pizza! It worked out really well. You order the pizza, you wait 15 minutes and you get a whole GF pizza to yourself! We brought it to the room and had a nice time on our balcony. It wasn’t my daughter’s favorite GF pizza ever, but it was fun.

Next up: our first At Sea day....

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We were very happy with the MDR food on Oasis a couple of weeks ago. We had one dinner in a specialty restaurant. We ate at Giovanni’s Table. Giovanni’s was a step above the MDR absolutely, but had we not had Giovanni’s, we never would have thought negatively about the MDR. We were loving our dinners all week! And honestly, the Giovanni’s night, we missed the MDR! We loved our wait staff so much, and had great dinners as a family all week. We are cruising again next year, and yes, we will go to Giovanni’s again, because it WAS that good. But I wouldn’t want to sacrifice any more nights than one in the MDR. You build a rapport with the wait staff, and having traditional dining, we liked the nice routine.

Oops—just realized I said we are a family of four! Obviously we are a family of five! But just four of us took this trip.

OK—I finally figured out how to attach pictures! However when I went to post my first installment of my review, it said I was only allowed to post 6 pictures per post. This confused me because I’m positive I’ve seen people post more than 6 pictures per post. Thoughts? Advice?

As a newcomer to the cruising world, I discovered Cruise Critic while planning what was supposed to be our first cruise, Anthem of the Seas in February 2018. That cruise wasn’t in the cards for us...our entire family got the flu in the days leading up to the cruise. Yes, it happens! We were down for the count. There was no way we could go. Thank god for travel insurance!

So, with my husband feeling better than me, he scrambled and planned a new cruise. I am our family’s vacation planner. I can’t tell you the hours I spent planning that Anthem cruise. However, under the spell of the flu, I couldn’t have cared less what new cruise was planned! He took over, the sweetheart that he is, and planned our Spring Break cruise on Oasis! (A quick call to a travel agent works wonders!)

Who we are: a family of four from Rochester, NY. Hubs, me, and our two kids, daughter age 13 and son age 11. We have another son as well, he’s 19 and away at college. The kids’ school breaks don’t line up anymore, so he didn’t come on this trip with us.

Here is our college age son

Here are our younger two who came on the cruise

Here’s me and hubs with our oldest on his first day of college!

We try to take a family vacation once a year. Our daughter has celiac, so that sometimes dictates the type of vacay we take. We’ve done Disney A LOT because they are the gold standard for food allergy cuisine! But Disney is $$$$ and we just couldn’t keep that vacation budget going every year. Our friends who have a celiac daughter sailed Royal last year and had great success, so we thought we’d give it a whirl.

Once I was feeling better (it literally took three weeks to feel like myself again—it was horrendous) I repacked our suitcases. We didn’t need the cooler weather clothes we would’ve needed on our February cruise out of NJ! We decided to drive to Florida to save some bucks. We drove to Florida last year for vacation as well, so we knew it wouldn’t be too bad. WiFi in the car doesn’t hurt, either!

We left for our long-awaited cruise on March 29. We drove the 29th and 30th arriving in Florida just before dinner on the 30th. The cruise didn’t leave until 4/1, but we decided to take an extra day on 3/31 to go to Kennedy Space Center. We had a voucher for tickets already purchased for what would have been a port stop in Port Canaveral for the Anthem cruise, so we wanted to be able to use those.

Pre-cruise we stayed at the Fairfield Inn Marriott in Titusville. Planning our cruise last minute meant hotels closer to the port were full, but this hotel was great. Served our needs, and it was a good location for KSC as well.

Excited for our first adventure to KSC! Love starting an already exciting vacation with an extra outing the day before, a little mini-vacation.

Kennedy Space Center was fantastic! We all had so much fun. Atlantis was our favorite building with so much to do!

We took the bus tour after lunch. We all liked it, but our son was bored at that part. Once the bus tour was over, we would have liked to see more of the Saturn V building (I believe that’s what it was) but a bored 11 year old means let’s keep this train moving! So we called it a day, with a very happy experience at KSC.

After a short rest at the hotel, we went to the huuuuge Ron Jon store in Cocoa Beach. We picked up some rash guards and t-shirts. Then we had the BEST dinner at a tiny place on Merritt Island called Mi Island restaurant. They have great food and do awesome with gluten free. My daughter had so many choices here, and the food was excellent. I would highly recommend it to anyone, especially if you have celiac!

Ok—being the newbie that I am, this part of my review, trying to figure out how to post pictures, has taken me two days haha. So I’ll post this, and tomorrow, embarkation day! (I’ll post a day of our cruise every day....)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you, everyone! Another question. I finally figured out Tapatalk. Now, when I try to attach a photo in my post, the actual photo doesn’t show up in my text, just words that look like a link to the photo show up. Should I be seeing my photo in my text, or will the actual photo show up once I post it? Sorry—I’m not tech savvy! But want to post a good review!