Freedom of the Seas Eastern Caribbean Photo Review- Jan 26th, 2014

[usckatieh]

Howdy and welcome to my Freedom of the Seas Eastern Caribbean review!

 

I decided to write a review after our Jan 26th trip for a few reasons. Number 1- because I love reading reviews on cruise critic myself and I’d like to give back for all those folks that helped me plan my cruise and keep me excited until the big day arrived. And number 2- it’s a great way to relive that awesome week on vacation! Stretch out that afterglow a few more days…

 

Quick summary

This review will include lots of details about our experiences, lots of photos, and I plan on making some comparisons between the Freedom and the Oasis, since that’s the only ships I’ve been on so far. I truly hope I don’t bore you to tears with all the details! This cruise was also our first with children so lots of our activities were kid-driven and I’ll try to add some advice for other parents traveling with young-ish children. I’ll try to post links to travel items that helped make our trip a little easier so you can investigate if it’s right for you too. I also have cruise compasses and Adventure Ocean schedules for the whole week! Feel free to ask any questions you have in mind. I’d be glad to help!

 

A little about me and my crew

My husband and I took our very first cruise in July 2013 on the Oasis Western Caribbean (you can read that review here) to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. We had an amazing time and we quickly became hooked on cruising! While our first trip was a romantic, adults-only adventure, I couldn’t help thinking about how much our kids would LOVE this vacation too. We are blessed with an intelligent, creative, outgoing 7 year old girl and a hilarious, industrious, cuddleable just-turned-4 year old little boy. Here’s a Christmas photo of our cuties, Kasiah & Patrick.

 

 

I’m a wedding photographer and I work full time at a hospital so life gets pretty busy and this past fall when I had 8 weddings scheduled to photograph in 6 weekends, I decided that for my sanity’s sake, I wanted to plan another cruise- this time for the whole family. It was something fun to look forward to, since I love the planning part.

 

Now the big question was when, where and what boat? Winter is my slowest time of year and my husband was supposed to be done with a big project at his work in January, so we decided to go with the fairly affordable January/February season.

 

Where do we want to sail? Since we’ve already done a Western Caribbean we decided to try an Eastern route and I liked the idea of leaving out of Port Canaveral instead of Fort Lauderdale or Miami since it cut 2 hours off of a very long drive from Columbia, SC with kids. My husband wanted a ship/sailing that offered the on-board scuba class, which never happened- but that’s a story for another day- so we pick the Jan 26th Freedom of the Seas! Since we made a some-what last minute decision to cruise (we booked around 3 months out of sailing) I wanted to watch the budget, so instead of a balcony, we decided to try an ocean view- which I really enjoyed. The options were slightly limited by the time we were booking for accommodations for 4 and I preferred an aft cabin, so once we found a 2-pullman bed ocean view cabin, aft deck 2 (room 2660), we were ready to book our next cruise of the Freedom of the Sea!!!

 

Photo from our tender at CoCoCay!

[usckatieh]

Packing Like a Boss

 

If you read my last review, you have seen that I’m a bit of, let’s say, planned packer. I start with pictures of all the outfits I have in mind and then I plan them per day based on the activities. I’m not sure where that puts me on the OCD scale but I’m pretty sure I’m well above average.

 

Here's a preview of my neurosis:

 

To keep things organized the kids, I used the one-outfit-per-ziplock-baggie trick, each labeled with the day of the week (OCD extra credit points). This really made life easy when I just piled up the baggies on the shelf in the closet and just grabbed an outfit for the day. Because opposites attract, my husband didn’t pack his clothes until 2 days before we left. Go figure.

 

I also packed an arsenal of motion sickness medications because I was worried/paranoid about how the kids would react to their first time on a cruise ship. My medicine cabinet included:

 

• kid’s chewable Dramamine

• Sea bands

• Candied Ginger

• Motionease (a liquid that you put behind your ears for quick relief

• Bonine for me and the DH

• The patches that DH had prescribed for him or myself last cruise, just in case

 

My stash

 

I think that about covers it. I also packed several stomach remedies, children’s Tylenol, powdered pedialyte, Claritin, swimmer’s ear medicine, etc. I managed to talk myself into leaving the kitchen sink at home though. My husband was relieved. :rolleyes:

 

Special items we brought for the kids were their leappads with games, those awesome ColorWonder coloring books and markers (awesome because the markers only show up on the color wonder paper meaning they can’t draw all over the walls, each other, the dog, etc), swim googles, books and a journal for our oldest, one small stuff animal and a car seat for our tour in St Maarten.

 

Camera Gear

Being a photographer by profession, of course I wanted to bring all my toys, but I know that I won’t want to carry them all. For most of the photos, I tended to use my big DSL (Nikon d700) with a versatile 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 lens that I’ve had in my camera bag forever. For camera geeks (everyone else feel free to stick your fingers in your ears and yell “la,la,la” much like my family does when I start talking photo-techy shop talk), if I traveled more I’d probably invest in the 24-120 f/4 with vibration reduction because it has a versatile zoom range and is good for low light, but for weddings I’m always carrying two cameras with a 24-70 2.8 and a 70-200 2.8, so I don’t really have the need for another $900 mid-range zoom lens… yet. :p I also brought the 14-24 2.8 wide angle for some night shots around the ship, but I found that the Freedom didn’t spend as much attention to lighting the areas for nighttime enjoyment as the Oasis did (if you’ve seen Central Park on the Oasis at night, it’s stunning) so I didn’t end up using this lens much! We also had our trusty waterproof camera- a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2, which I used for some photos on the beach, but mostly we let our daughter take pictures with this one for her school project because it’s durable and we attached a floating wristband to it, so it’s hard to lose. And of course, we had our phones handy for quick grab photos and panoramic. I love iphone panaramics!

 

After everything was packed, we ended up with only one more carryon bag with all the kids stuff than when we had traveled just the two of us, so I consider that a success! :D

 

Coming up- A trick to keep kids busy for (part of) a 7 hour car ride and our review of the Radisson

[counsdr]

Katie, your children are just beautiful! I have 2 grands in Columbia; an almost 4 year old granddaughter and 2 year old grandson! I love them to bits!!!!

Thanks for doing a review. I'll read as much as possible before I board on Sunday :)

 

Cheryl

[riclop]

Thanks for doing your review and your kids are adorable.

[poodog]

Thank you for your review

[usckatieh]

Katie, your children are just beautiful! I have 2 grands in Columbia; an almost 4 year old granddaughter and 2 year old grandson! I love them to bits!!!!

Thanks for doing a review. I'll read as much as possible before I board on Sunday :)

 

Cheryl

 

Thanks for doing your review and your kids are adorable.

 

Thanks guys and good luck on your upcoming trip Cheryl! Kids sure are fun at that age!

[usckatieh]

Day 0- The long trip down 95

 

We started our journey about 9:00 after dropping the dog off at the kennel, aka “Dog Hotel” to the kids. I think the temperature was 35 degrees in Columbia, SC when we left- remnants of the Polar Vortex. I told my mom we were going to keep driving until we didn’t need coats anymore! It was mostly a long trek down i-95.

 

For the drive down and entertainment in our room we picked up this ingenious device that stores all our movies like a portable drive, but it also creates a streaming wireless network that you can link your devices to and play movies from anywhere. Here’s a link if you’re curious.

 

We tried this thing at home running 4 movies (1 on the iphone, 1 on the kindle, 1 on the TVand 1 on ipad) simultaneously and it worked fine. Since it has a built in battery too, I set up the ipad and kindle to stream whatever movie the kids wanted to watch and they were perfectly entertained for a few hours. I thought it was pretty neat for something the same price as a car DVD player. We also used this gizmo to play a movie around bedtime in our cabin to help everyone wind down.

 

The kids happily enjoying their own movies. Quick word of warning- this device may cause your child to spontaneous burst into a ballad of “A Whole New World”, not realizing that the rest of the car can’t hear the music. I know this one from experience.

 

 

We stopped halfway from SC to Port Canaveral in Brunswick, GA for lunch. For other parents traveling that route, there’s a Chic-fil-a right off the highway with a play place where the kids had some time to stretch their legs.

When we arrived in Port Canaveral around 5:30 it was a lovely 68 degrees and we happily ditched our coats for good! Our travel agent booked us in a whirlpool suite with the sleep-number bed, including breakfast and parking at the Radisson by the port. The room showed its age a little, but all and all, we were very pleased with the amount of space and amenities.

Here’s the front room of the suite with a pull out couch

 

 

Bedroom. Do you think my daughter is excited to be on vacation?

 

 

Walking past the pool, you could tell there were a lot of cruisers on this trip and there was a really festive atmosphere. There was even a guitarist playing out by the pool deck.

 

 

All of us were worn out from a full day of driving, so we decided to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant. The food was pretty good but I think the lobster ravioli appetizer was the winner for this meal. Not that expensive and you get TONS of food.

 

We let the kids take a swim in the whirlpool and then called it a night.

 

Coming up next- Finally, they’ll actually get on a cruise ship and my first sail away party!

[descotes]

A little about me and my crew

My husband and I took our very first cruise in July 2013 on the Oasis Western Caribbean (you can read that review here) to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. We had an amazing time and we quickly became hooked on cruising! While our first trip was a romantic, adults-only adventure, I couldn’t help thinking about how much our kids would LOVE this vacation too. We are blessed with an intelligent, creative, outgoing 7 year old girl and a hilarious, industrious, cuddleable just-turned-4 year old little boy. Here’s a Christmas photo of our cuties, Kasiah & Patrick.

 

 

We are actually doing the opposite of you kind of.... We did the Oasis just my husband and I also in July 2013 but we did the Eastern Caribbean. We are now going to do the Freedom Western Caribbean and taking the kids who are 14 and 12. Looking forward to reading the rest.

[usckatieh]

We are actually doing the opposite of you kind of.... We did the Oasis just my husband and I also in July 2013 but we did the Eastern Caribbean. We are now going to do the Freedom Western Caribbean and taking the kids who are 14 and 12. Looking forward to reading the rest.

 

Awesome! I hope you guys have a great time!

[usckatieh]

Day 1- Time to get on the big boat!

 

Breakfast at the hotel was included with our booking but I think it runs $9.50 or so if you don’t purchase the breakfast package. They had a pretty standard breakfast buffet setup with an omelet station. Kids 6 and under are free.

 

We had pre-reserved a 10:30 shuttle shortly after booking the hotel room so we gathered our luggage and joined the masses in the hotel lobby at 10:05. The place was already packed with cruisers at that point. FYI- You do have to move your car into the long term parking area at the Radisson before you leave but it’s not far from the hotel lobby. After we added our names to the shuttle check in list, we just waited for our bus. There was also a Carnival and Disney cruise sailing out that day, but we were called to hop on our bus very close to 10:30. The driver loaded the big luggage for us and we were on our way!

 

Checking in

 

The first difference from Port Everglades and Port Canaveral was that the porter immediately let us know that they were no longer allowed to load a case of water with luggage tags on it (I know it’s against the rules but it worked in Fort Lauderdale, so it was worth a shot)! He did however encourage us to shove the bottles into our checked bags while he turned away for a moment, so after a quick and stealthily H2O redistribution maneuver, we left our bags safely in the porters hands.

 

The line to get through the 2 x-ray machines was the longest wait we had all day and that only took about 15 minutes. We went right to the C&A Gold counter to get our seapasses with no wait. 10 more minutes of “paper work” and we were allowed to start walking directly onto the ship! There was a station right as you entered the Promenade to get the kid’s colored bracelets. The kids wore these bracelets the entire cruise to let anyone know which muster station they should go to in case of an emergency.

 

We decided to brave the Windjammer for lunch and after seeing how quiet the Promenade Café was afterwards, I wish we had gone there. The WJ was packed! Last cruise we skipped all that craziness by heading straight to the Park Café on the Oasis. We did a little exploring and promptly at 1:00, they had our room ready!

 

Our Ocean View Room

 

Here’s a photo of the room from the door

 

 

And one from the window

 

 

The kids LOVED the Pullman bed that came down from the ceiling. That bed was like their own secret loft during the day. It had a little bar across the long side to keep anyone from falling out and a ladder that you can set up and take down to get to the bed. The mattress up there was fairly comfy and definitely sized to fit a medium sized adult. Even with just one side down though, I still managed to whack my head on it a few times when getting up from tying someone’s shoe or something. I meant to grab a picture of it pulled down but I forgot- probably a side effect from all those bed to cranium collisions.

 

There was a loveseat sized couch that we made up as a bed for my son. It was the perfect size and we turned the bed towards the bathroom wall which made it impossible for him to fall out.

 

There was also a curtain in the middle of the cabin which, at first, I thought was a genius idea to turn our little studio apartment room into a “suite” but after it was pulled back-and-forth, and open-and-closed approximately 128 times by each of the children, causing my husband to threatened to turn into the Hulk if they touched that curtain ONE MORE TIME, I took back their genius award. If you don’t have little curtain monsters, you may like that feature.

 

Check out the Disney Dream, our port neighbor, through our ocean view window

 

 

We were debating whether to get an interior room or an ocean view and I’m glad we went with the window. Among maybe benefits, I love being able to watch us pull into port without having to get out of my warm, cozy bed. It was calm most of the trip but on rougher sea days, all of us were amazed to see how big the waves got. And I had a natural alarm clock with the rays of Caribbean sun waking me up each morning. Of course, we usually get up at or before sunrise anyways, so other people may see that as a downside.

 

Exploring

 

After unpacking and muster drill, we registered the kids at Adventure Ocean. Here’s a photo of the Aquanauts room. Patrick loved the little slide.

 

 

Be aware that once sessions start, they don’t allow any photos in the kid’s rooms, so if you want to check them out and get a few pictures, do it on the first day.

 

Walking in the Promenade, we ran across Gloria from Madagascar.

 

 

 

The seapass lanyards were given to us by the AO. Kids don't have to wear their seapasses to AO unless they were given permission to check themselves out.

[usckatieh]

Our scanner is a little temperamental so I took pictures of each Cruise Compass as it arrived to make sure I was able to post those sooner rather than later. If you have trouble seeing the images, let me know and I can email you the originals.

 

Day 1 Compass (these were sitting on our beds when we got to the room)

 

 

 

 

 

Officers and Staff

 

 

Crown & Anchor Gold Deals

 

[usckatieh]

Here’s the Adventure Ocean brochures

 

 

 

 

 

 

[usckatieh]

Setting Sail

 

About 4:30, they were pulling up the ropes and getting ready to set sail. I’m usually behind the camera so here’s a quick self-y of me and the kids. Can you feel the excitement?

 

 

DH helping Patrick see over the railings

 

 

These kiddos are ready to sail!

 

 

DH isn’t a big fan of crowds so we started off watching the set sail from deck 4. This deck was a great escape place because it was never really busy and it had a great view. I love the little outcropping on deck 4 on each side of the ship where you can watch the water rush across the hull as we cut through the ocean. Here’s our view from the outcropping looking to the front of the ship.

 

 

I think this is the new observation building

 

 

After a little while, the kids and I went up to the pool deck. I love the energy that went with the Freedom’s sail away party. There was music, dancing and all sorts of fun.

 

 

We decided to go with traditional dining at 5:30, because our family always get hungry early anyways. We ended up at an 8 person table with 1 other solo traveler who had specialty dining reservations for all but one night, so I kind of missed the social aspects of traditional dining. My husband and I prefer the main dining room experience to buffet dining though, so we ate there every night. I’m afraid I don’t have many food photos because as most parents know, you time at dinner is split between cutting up chicken nuggets, reminding people that forks are for eating- not for musical instruments/catapults/sword fighting/name-your-mischief and eventually trying to shove some food into your own face, so photo opportunities took a back seat to maintaining a proper level of nourishment all around the table. Truthfully, the kids did really well with being patient through the hour and a half meal and we had worked on table manners at home so most of the time, they just needed quick reminders to check their behavior. The waiters also helped by having a plate of fruit waiting for them when we arrived and bringing the kid’s food out early so they didn’t end up having to wait on us to finish our appetizers to eat. I really appreciated the professional and respectful way they treated the children in the dining room. That being said, take my word for it, the salmon that night was quite tasty.

 

Speaking of dinner, one of my favorite parts of cruising is the food- it’s free (or at least pre-paid for), plentiful, available around the clock and best of all, I don’t have to cook it! So, when we headed back to the room that night, I demonstrated to the children the concept of room services by ordering cookies and milk before bed. Yeah, that’s the good life!

 

Coming up- CocoCay, Close encounters with exotic animal life, and the first formal night!

[kruzerci]

I'm curious what you thought of deck 2. We generally book a JS or balcony, but we booked a deck 2 oceanview for December since it was less than half the price of a balcony. We have never been down there on a Voyager or Freedom class ship.

[Tropicalgal2]

Setting Sail

 

Coming up- CocoCay, Close encounters with exotic animal life, and the first formal night!

 

Thank you so much for all the information so far. It is great. :) Will be there in November! :D

[CSohio]

Thanks for your review so far!

 

I am excited to hear more about your experience cruising with children. We are trying to plan a cruise for January 2015 with three families and have been looking at at sailing on Freedom. We have 6 adults and 5 children in our group; four of the kids will be 9 and 1 will be 4.

[Mlkkc]

I've havie been waiting for a Eastern Review on Freedom I'm booked for Oct19th sailing

[usckatieh]

I'm curious what you thought of deck 2. We generally book a JS or balcony, but we booked a deck 2 oceanview for December since it was less than half the price of a balcony. We have never been down there on a Voyager or Freedom class ship.

 

I actually really liked deck 2. The motion of the ship was a lot less noticable there than up on the high decks and I found it to be very quiet. It was pretty convenient to a lot of activities as well. For dining, we just walked 2 floors up the stairs and for ports we just walked down one flight of stairs. And I remember waiting forever some days for an elevator that wasn't already full on the 7th floor on the Oasis and with 2, you wait longer to get to the top but you don't come across as many full ones! Now, I'm on the fence between that OV and balcony for the next one. I love that ocean breeze but the OV was really cozy and nice for the price!

[usckatieh]

Thank you so much for all the information so far. It is great. :) Will be there in November! :D

 

Thanks for your review so far!

 

I am excited to hear more about your experience cruising with children. We are trying to plan a cruise for January 2015 with three families and have been looking at at sailing on Freedom. We have 6 adults and 5 children in our group; four of the kids will be 9 and 1 will be 4.

 

I've havie been waiting for a Eastern Review on Freedom I'm booked for Oct19th sailing

 

Thanks for reading everybody! You're going to have a great time.

CSohio- The Freedom is a great ship for famillies. They'll have a great time. The H20 Zone and poolside ice cream was a BIG hit!

[usckatieh]

Day 2 Cruise Compasses/ Adventure Ocean

 

 

 

 

 

[usckatieh]

Day 2- CoCoCay

 

I’ve heard that due to winds and weather, CoCo Cay is a port that’s often missed in the winter, but thankfully we were blessed with a beautiful, sunny, calm day. Tendering was a new experience for me and the boats that brought us over to CoCoCay were much larger than I expected (we were on a double decker) and with the calm seas it was a piece of cake getting on and off.

 

The Freedom looked so majestic from the tender.

 

 

If you want to know how big the tenders are, here’s one that was pulling into the cove at CoCoCay as we were getting ready to unload.

 

 

CoCoCay Ecotour Excursion

 

My husband isn’t much of a beach kind of guy so we didn’t plan a long day on CoCoCay. We wanted to be back on the Freedom for lunch. As we were getting to the island, I went to inquire about the Ecotour at the information booth, because I had seen in the Compass that kids are free with an adult purchase. I’d researched that excursion before we left but didn’t buy tickets so that we could have a flexible schedule. Sure enough, as soon as we walked up, they said they had a boat leaving at 9:30 (in 15 minutes) so we were all set our educational excursion. We hung out in the shaded waiting area behind the shops for the allotted 15 minutes until our guide came over to take us to our tour boat! Here are my gentlemen getting ready to leave the cove.

 

 

First the guide explained a little about the island- that it was originally called Little Stirrup Cay but as he mentioned “when you buy (or lease) a multimillion dollar island, you can rename it whatever you want!” First, we took a short ride over to an uninhabited portion of the back of Great Stirrup Cay- the island that the Norwegian ship was tendering people to at the same time. We spotted some iguanas catching some rays on the rocks.

 

 

Then, we floated over to the coral reef/snorkeling area which was amazingly calm and clear. We spent a little time looking for wildlife. We spotted a few rays and starfish on the bottom of the sand. The kids threw some rice out to attract yellow snapper and some colorful fish. All the kids on the tour got really excited though, when they pulled out the coolers with the sea creatures that they had caught earlier that morning. The guide would explain a little about each creature and then everyone got a chance to hold or touch it.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2014 by usckatieh

[usckatieh]

Here’s my kiddos checking out the starfish. This was definitely a highlight of the trip.

 

 

 

Other creatures

 

 

Lobster- See you on formal night, buddy!

 

 

Very interesting sea cucumber- Watch out they squirt!

 

 

And a live conch

 

 

At the end of the trip, you could pick out a seashell to take home with you. They explained at the end of the day, they’d return all the sea creatures to where they found them! This was a great excursion for people of all ages, but it was definitely a memorable and unique opportunity for the kids.

[usckatieh]

Time to hit the beach

 

I heard that Barefoot Beach is a good shallow, calm beach for the kids, but I brilliantly left the map in the room and I couldn’t find it anywhere on the signs. I thought it was near Adventure Ocean so we headed that general direction. The beach near the water inflatable toys (turns out to be Coconut Willie’s Beach) looked very shallow and there were still tons of chairs open even at 10:30 so we decided to start having fun there. I would have love to see Barefoot Beach, but at least that gives me something to check out next time!

 

 

Here’s a few shots of the beach. It was sandy enough not to need water shoes but I was glad we had them because we ran into one jellyfish chilling in the shallows. I hope you don’t mind all the kid photos- traveling alone, I tend to grab more scenery but with the kids, I tend to focus on the family memories.

 

 

 

The family (with the watertoys in the background)

 

 

Sandcastles

 

 

 

I LOVE that they put hammocks everywhere. I’m making another mental note to bring a book for chilling in the shade next time. Now you see how my travel itinerary books up before I even book the next cruise, right?!

[usckatieh]

About 12:00 we headed back to the tenders. Here’s a view of the cabanas which are on a nice little peninsula to the left of the tender area.

 

 

The beautiful, clear water on the edge of the cove

 

 

One of my favorite photos is of the parasailers right next to the Freedom while we’re tendering back

 

 

While we waited for the tender to fill up a little more at the dock, we heard someone jokingly complain, “What is the hold up! I haven’t eaten in 15 minutes! Don’t they know I’m on a cruise!” Funny, because it’s true. We used that line a few times that week!

 

Speaking of food, we decided to have a nice, uncrowded lunch at the Windjammer and went back to the cabin to start on Kasiah’s school work and journal about what we learned on the ecotour.

 

Our Experience with Schoolwork on the Seas

There was the issue that Kasiah would miss some school on this trip, but we are lucky to be part of a Mandarin immersion charter school whose administration views international experiences as a valuable part of the learning process.

 

Before we even book the trip, we talked to Kasiah’s teachers and her principal to see if it would be problematic to take the week off and how we could make sure she didn’t miss any work. We worked out with her teachers to take an “academic suitcase” of school work and complete it on our trip as well as having her complete a journal (Kasiah’s idea), a map of people she met from across the world (her teacher’s idea since they were looking about maps) and a series of photos of things she learned that she could present to her peers. We also made sure we didn’t take her out during any testing dates. Since we worked out a plan with the teachers and the principal, we were able to get Kasiah’s travel approved as “independent study days” so they don’t count as absences. We also tried to plan an educational activity at each port so she'd have something fun to write about. I know not everyone agrees with kids missing school for travel and we probably won’t travel during the school year once she gets in middle school and her course load is heavier, but for now it works for our values and lifestyle. As a sidenote, Kasiah was actually ahead of her peers when we got back because they missed a day and a half of school due to snow, but that’s another story!

 

After completing some homework, journaling and reading, the kids and I decided to check out the Turbo 3D movie in the Arcadia Theater. This was my first 3D movie and I was afraid it was going to make me a little nauseous since I tend to get motion sickness sometimes, but we all really enjoyed it. There was a terrible rumbling noise for about 5 minutes during the previews- I almost got up to ask the crew if everything was alright- but I realized they were probably just pulling up anchor from CoCoCay and we were in the lower decks near the very front of the ship.

 

After the movie, it was just about time for our first formal night dinner so we all dressed up in a hurry and headed to the Promenade for a few photos before hitting the main dining room.

 

We don’t get dressed up much so having a nice photograph of our whole family (including myself) was pretty high on my priority list. I was pretty easy to find a photographer because they were set up all around the dining rooms and in the Promenade. Our family photos were taken on the staircase near the deck 4 dining room. There was pretty much no wait. Here's our crew

 

 

[usckatieh]

Adventure Ocean

 

After dinner we changed the kids into play clothes and let them try out Adventure Ocean for the first time. Let me just say they did not want to leave when we came back, they were having so much fun. Patrick was in the Aquanauts room and Kasiah was in the Explorers. FYI- You have to walk through the Arcade to get to some of the older kid’s rooms- that threw me off a little bit at first. There was probably 100-150 kids on our sailing so the class sizes were generally around 10-20 kids at a time and generally with 2 teachers in the room. The teachers were all very enthusiastic and up-beat. I even saw one of the Aquanauts teachers crawling around on the floor giving the kids rides on his back like a pony. Now that’s dedication. The kids did crafts, games, dancing, and special night activities like pajama movie night and the pirate parade.

 

I hadn’t planned on using Adventure Ocean much, but after the first experience, the kids would ask to go back to their “kids club” whenever we had more than 15 minutes downtime. At first glance some of the activities in the Explorers looked very sports orientated and so I wasn’t sure if my daughter would like it, but they seemed to keep all the activities in good spirits so she had a great time. Generally, we let them play from around 3:30 until 5:00 so we grabbed them before dinner and for an hour or two on the 2-3 night where they have special activities planned that the kids expressed interest in. FYI- on port days, AO also offered to let the kids eat lunch or dinner there, but we never used that service. For us, AO gave the kids a way to meet friends and blow off some energy and as parents, it gave us a few hours to explore the ship, eat a quiet snack, read a book, or, you know, do grown-up stuff.

 

To wind down, we started a movie and before you know it, the combination of a long day of sand and sun, full bellies from an awesome dinner and the gentle rocking of the ship had us all asleep in no time!

 

Coming up- Pancakes with Shrek, my children become the newest cast members of the ice show and Patrick’s smart-casual "mobster" look.