Hello! It’s been waaaay more than a minute since I’ve been here. To be exact, December 19th was when I last posted about some yummy and healthier dips. Then Christmas came (merry christmas!) and new years (happy new year!) and then we went on a cruise (whoop!). The past 3 weeks have been jam packed like crazy with tons of family get together and of course, traveling. We arrived back home from our trip Saturday evening and I finally feel back on our timezone and like my brain is out of the jet lag fog. Today it’s all about the cruise to the caribbean and of course, tons of pictures. I hope you enjoy it!
On a Friday we woke super early (2am yuck!) to catch an early morning flight from Portland, OR to Denver, CO, then from Denver to Ft Lauderdale, FL.
We stayed at a hotel that night and the next morning headed to the cruise ship! ‘We’ included my little family (Jacob, Hunter, Zoe and myself), my parents, my 3 brothers, my 2 sisters-in-law, my nephew, my 2 nieces and an aunt and uncle, for a grand total of 16! My parents are cruising pros and showed us the ropes + we tagged along with them and got to go through all the fast access ‘preferred lines’. And of course we all joked about being ‘preferred’ and super cool because of that.
Our 7 day voyage was with the Princess Cruise line. I didn’t get many pictures of our room but here’s one. We had the 2 twin beds put together and a pack in play for Hunter next to us + one for Zoe in the closet near the bathroom. It was actually more spacious than I expected it to be!
We sailed out on Saturday, and on Sunday we arrived at the bahamas for some beach time. The water was amazing and temp in the low 80’s. I had been sick on the flight over and felt crummy the first few days and Zoe sprung a fever the night before the bahamas, so our beach time was limited.
Monday we had a day at sea and all slept a lot if I remember right (still adjusting to the time change). I’m sure we played games and all that fun stuff but without pictures I just can’t remember!
Tuesday we arrived at St. Maarten. Jacob, the kids and I were slow moving that morning and headed onto the island later than the rest of our group so we ended up finding a beach near by and played there, then had lunch at a small BBQ spot. Delicious! I had my first plantain (fried, mmmm) and it was fantastic. We also wandered around the little markets there too and took the taxi boat to and from the cruise ship to the beach near by.
Wednesday we docked at St. Thomas where we had an excursion planned to go to Coral World and also a semi-sub underwater fish watching adventure. The semi-sub was not as cool as I though it was going to be (we saw 4 or so different fish) but Coral World was great! We got to pet sting ray, watch a sea lion show, feed birds, check out a huge turtle, see little sharks and lots of other fish. Hunter had a blast there. There was a beach right by it that we so wanted to go to, but we ran out of time and also didn’t want to pay the extra crazy amount it would be to taxi back to the ship.
Thursday we went to Grand Turk. Such a beautiful island! It was our absolute favorite. We spent our time on the beach and swam in the ocean. We did a bit of snorkeling there too. The water was just perfection. Warm and salty so you can easily just float around. We were pretty tired that evening and had room service delivered for dinner and watched a movie in our room. It was nice and relaxing and the perfect way to end a fun day.
Friday we were at sea and spent time playing games together as a family and going to a couple different cruise activities. Throughout all the days there were tons of activities on the cruise ship like bingo, trivia, minute-to-win-it, sport competitions, fruit carving and so much more. In the evenings there was normally a show (we say the comedian a couple times). The dinners were sit down all together in the formal dining area. We had 2 tables between all of us. They would usually last 60-90 minutes which with little kids was kind of tough sometimes. Breakfast and lunches were almost always at the buffet. Two of the nights were formal so we all got dressed up and fancy. They took pictures and we loved ours so we bought it to hang on our wall at home.
Saturday we left the ship, but not before letting all the kids run and play like crazy. We left around 10am and since a ton of people had already left it wasn’t as crowded as usual so they got to be wild. We loved all the time with family and it truly flew by.
Our return flights (FL–>TX–>OR) were a bit more challenging for the kids (mostly Zoe during the second flight), but all in all flying with kids was not bad at all.
I’d say 3 out of our 4 flights total looked like this. So much sweet cuddling. 🙂
Now that we’re home I’m glad to be getting back into my rhythm of things again. And that means here as well! Hope you enjoyed seeing our fun family adventure!
So tell me, how are you all?! Any fun traveling happening or anything exciting going on so far this new year? Have you ever been on a cruise? If so, where?
Heather
1 comment
I can’t believe how big the kids are getting! What a great trip! Yall are troopers for dealing with the flights!! I always get such anxiety when we fly with Kay!