CamperMomma
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2012
- Messages
- 139
First off, thank you everyone for the wonderful knowledge on these boards! I felt like we knew a little bit about what we were doing getting on the boat. Here's some notes from our trip:
Pools - pretty much equals human soup. If they weren't closed because someone pooped in them, they were busy busy busy during the day. If you want to swim, go after dinner. We spent much of our time on decks 11, 12, and 13 after dinner when hardly anyone was there! It was wonderful!
Room - we had a deluxe family oceanview room - 6670. Plenty large for our family of 4 (me, DH, DS - 5, and DD - 2). DD had a rough time falling asleep and staying asleep on her own, so often DH shared the queen sized bed with her. I took the Murphy bed right next to the window and slept just fine. We did have quite a bit of rocking on nights 2 and 3, and I ended up taking Bonine those nights so I could get some good sleep, but I do fall victim to motion sickness quite easily, and the winds outside were upwards of 30+ knots at times.
Aqua Duck - because of the high winds we seemed to experience the entire trip, most of the time the Aqua Duck required 2 people to ride (no solo riders) or was closed all together (mainly evenings). With our two young kiddos we didn't get to try the aqua duck at all. BUT...I have a fix for that....coming later in this report
Meals - I thought the meals were very good! Cabana's had a great lunch (shrimp with that yummy sauce..oh my!) and a good variety of things to hit most tastes. Loved being able to get Eggs Benedict every morning for breakfast! Yummo!! Our rotation was: ERRA
Servers - Our head server was Roy and our assistant server was Manuel. Both were headed on vacation for 8 weeks at the conclusion of our cruise. Wonderful guys! We got to learn about some of the "inner workings" of the ship, which was neat.
Cruise Director - Jimmy....he does a great job! So upbeat. He mentioned having a family, how long does he stay on the ship at once?? Our servers mentioned they are on 6 month contracts! Yikes! Goodness that's a long time to be away.
Kids Club/Nursery - we did end up using the nursery for dinner 3 nights. The first night she was "over" dinner about 20 minutes in, so we took her upstairs and checked her in. She seemed to love being in there and helping the ladies with the babies in the room and doing crafts. We did keep her with us for the Animators Palate dinner, and glad we did! Our son, who is 5, tried the kids club once and lasted about 10 minutes. He doesn't do well with sudden change, and unfamiliar things, so we were worried that may happen. It worked out okay in the end, he got lots of time with just mom and dad during dinner and we usually had an hour or so after dinner before we had to pick up little sis from the nursery so he and dad often went to play on Goofy's sports deck while I wandered about.
Nassau - we got off the boat for about an hour here. It was just a rough day with our son, so we stayed on the boat longer than we intended. Did a tiny bit of shopping, snapped a few pictures and back on we got.
Castaway Cay - beautiful place! It rained for about 20 minutes, but then cleared back out for a beautiful day! Saw quite a bit of marine life. If you have kids that like to play in the sand, figure out a way to pack a bucket and shovels, or be ready to shuck out some cash for ones there. You bet we figured out a way to pack home the $20 sand play kit!!
We did make an unexpected stop in Ft. Lauderdale for a medical emergency. Not sure what happened, but prayers everything was ok. We hauled tush from Castaway Cay to there that evening, with a brief slowdown for fireworks for pirate night.
This is getting long so I'll close with we loved it so much, we put the $250 down as a placeholder! We want to do an "adults only" trip next time, as there's so much to see and do on the boat for 18+ that we didn't get to experience. While our daughter would be elated to go again, our son probably not so much, so we'll just make it for us two.
If anyone has questions...ask away!!
Pools - pretty much equals human soup. If they weren't closed because someone pooped in them, they were busy busy busy during the day. If you want to swim, go after dinner. We spent much of our time on decks 11, 12, and 13 after dinner when hardly anyone was there! It was wonderful!
Room - we had a deluxe family oceanview room - 6670. Plenty large for our family of 4 (me, DH, DS - 5, and DD - 2). DD had a rough time falling asleep and staying asleep on her own, so often DH shared the queen sized bed with her. I took the Murphy bed right next to the window and slept just fine. We did have quite a bit of rocking on nights 2 and 3, and I ended up taking Bonine those nights so I could get some good sleep, but I do fall victim to motion sickness quite easily, and the winds outside were upwards of 30+ knots at times.
Aqua Duck - because of the high winds we seemed to experience the entire trip, most of the time the Aqua Duck required 2 people to ride (no solo riders) or was closed all together (mainly evenings). With our two young kiddos we didn't get to try the aqua duck at all. BUT...I have a fix for that....coming later in this report
Meals - I thought the meals were very good! Cabana's had a great lunch (shrimp with that yummy sauce..oh my!) and a good variety of things to hit most tastes. Loved being able to get Eggs Benedict every morning for breakfast! Yummo!! Our rotation was: ERRA
Servers - Our head server was Roy and our assistant server was Manuel. Both were headed on vacation for 8 weeks at the conclusion of our cruise. Wonderful guys! We got to learn about some of the "inner workings" of the ship, which was neat.
Cruise Director - Jimmy....he does a great job! So upbeat. He mentioned having a family, how long does he stay on the ship at once?? Our servers mentioned they are on 6 month contracts! Yikes! Goodness that's a long time to be away.
Kids Club/Nursery - we did end up using the nursery for dinner 3 nights. The first night she was "over" dinner about 20 minutes in, so we took her upstairs and checked her in. She seemed to love being in there and helping the ladies with the babies in the room and doing crafts. We did keep her with us for the Animators Palate dinner, and glad we did! Our son, who is 5, tried the kids club once and lasted about 10 minutes. He doesn't do well with sudden change, and unfamiliar things, so we were worried that may happen. It worked out okay in the end, he got lots of time with just mom and dad during dinner and we usually had an hour or so after dinner before we had to pick up little sis from the nursery so he and dad often went to play on Goofy's sports deck while I wandered about.
Nassau - we got off the boat for about an hour here. It was just a rough day with our son, so we stayed on the boat longer than we intended. Did a tiny bit of shopping, snapped a few pictures and back on we got.
Castaway Cay - beautiful place! It rained for about 20 minutes, but then cleared back out for a beautiful day! Saw quite a bit of marine life. If you have kids that like to play in the sand, figure out a way to pack a bucket and shovels, or be ready to shuck out some cash for ones there. You bet we figured out a way to pack home the $20 sand play kit!!
We did make an unexpected stop in Ft. Lauderdale for a medical emergency. Not sure what happened, but prayers everything was ok. We hauled tush from Castaway Cay to there that evening, with a brief slowdown for fireworks for pirate night.
This is getting long so I'll close with we loved it so much, we put the $250 down as a placeholder! We want to do an "adults only" trip next time, as there's so much to see and do on the boat for 18+ that we didn't get to experience. While our daughter would be elated to go again, our son probably not so much, so we'll just make it for us two.
If anyone has questions...ask away!!
