I have had a few months to stew on this.....and they have been cazy....
We couldn't have picked a better vacation for our family. We all enjoyed it, and we all had different reasons we liked it.
DH and I loved the relaxed feeling of the ship. We enjoyed having the room to ourselves...no sneaking around in the morning to get dress and out for coffee....not watching hours of suite life....our own BATHROOM....and just general privacy. A note about our rooms, we had two rooms next to each other, we didn't have adjoining rooms...and never did we feel like we needed them. They had keys to ours and we had keys to thiers. They slept late, left the TV on overnight, and had thier own space for getting "ready."
We liked the fact that our meals were easy and really really tastey. We are not really foodies but we do enjoy a good meal and while we weren't eating micro-greens with truffle oil, we had great meals...and the girls enjoyed them too.
DD13 had the time of her life....she really did. I was most worried about her, she is all about herself (she is really a very sweet girl and I am looking forward to her being sweet again, I know it is still in there somewhere) and this vacation let her have the freedom we NEVER let her have at home. The fact that she was with her peers and supervised by adults who were "cool" (like fun older siblings) and had a place to call her own...was absolutly perfect. If she was 16 she might have been bored with the whole thing, but being a baby-teen and staying out late, meeting teens from other countries, and having the freedom to do things that she "thinks" kids her age get to do if they don't live in her house made the vacation ideal for her. She was exhausted during the day, and took a few naps to keep up with the club schedule...they don't get rocking until 10ish each night...and for a 7 night cruise she might have needed to pace herself (she goes to bed after a 2 1/2 hour swim practice at 9ish), but I am sure she would figure it out.
DD9 enjoyed her club. She didn't make the friends like DD13 did, but I think that is because there were different kids there all the time. She found a few that she wanted to do specific activites with, but mostly she just loved the games (marshmellow olympics) and the cooking school. We did have to talk to her a couple of times because I felt like she was going to the club because she felt like she "had" to, like DH and I expected it, so we would occasionally pop in and get her to do a trivia thing or play shuffle board.
Cell-phone free - wow it was awesome! I have to say it was by far the best decision we made...DD13 actually left her phone in the car at the airport in St. Louis. It took sometime to get used to, we are so used to having them for the quick "on my way" or "where are you", but you can get used to not having them. So leave them off and in your luggage...it is doable.
Downside....the girls got sick...like really really really sick....DD13 and DD9 were vomiting on Friday after flying home Tursday night and have had serious stomach pain for weeks afterward. We have missed over a week of school and hasn't been able to get back into the pool for serious practices yet (we missed regionals and states as a result). Dr.s were stumped and they did a number of tests and everything came back normal - I can't blame the cruise directly, but I am certain that traveling during flu season, has more to do with our fate than anything.
We are planning our next cruise and it will be a 7 nighter or longer....we had a great time and I am certain Disney will be our cruise ship of choice next time as well....
We couldn't have picked a better vacation for our family. We all enjoyed it, and we all had different reasons we liked it.
DH and I loved the relaxed feeling of the ship. We enjoyed having the room to ourselves...no sneaking around in the morning to get dress and out for coffee....not watching hours of suite life....our own BATHROOM....and just general privacy. A note about our rooms, we had two rooms next to each other, we didn't have adjoining rooms...and never did we feel like we needed them. They had keys to ours and we had keys to thiers. They slept late, left the TV on overnight, and had thier own space for getting "ready."
We liked the fact that our meals were easy and really really tastey. We are not really foodies but we do enjoy a good meal and while we weren't eating micro-greens with truffle oil, we had great meals...and the girls enjoyed them too.
DD13 had the time of her life....she really did. I was most worried about her, she is all about herself (she is really a very sweet girl and I am looking forward to her being sweet again, I know it is still in there somewhere) and this vacation let her have the freedom we NEVER let her have at home. The fact that she was with her peers and supervised by adults who were "cool" (like fun older siblings) and had a place to call her own...was absolutly perfect. If she was 16 she might have been bored with the whole thing, but being a baby-teen and staying out late, meeting teens from other countries, and having the freedom to do things that she "thinks" kids her age get to do if they don't live in her house made the vacation ideal for her. She was exhausted during the day, and took a few naps to keep up with the club schedule...they don't get rocking until 10ish each night...and for a 7 night cruise she might have needed to pace herself (she goes to bed after a 2 1/2 hour swim practice at 9ish), but I am sure she would figure it out.
DD9 enjoyed her club. She didn't make the friends like DD13 did, but I think that is because there were different kids there all the time. She found a few that she wanted to do specific activites with, but mostly she just loved the games (marshmellow olympics) and the cooking school. We did have to talk to her a couple of times because I felt like she was going to the club because she felt like she "had" to, like DH and I expected it, so we would occasionally pop in and get her to do a trivia thing or play shuffle board.
Cell-phone free - wow it was awesome! I have to say it was by far the best decision we made...DD13 actually left her phone in the car at the airport in St. Louis. It took sometime to get used to, we are so used to having them for the quick "on my way" or "where are you", but you can get used to not having them. So leave them off and in your luggage...it is doable.
Downside....the girls got sick...like really really really sick....DD13 and DD9 were vomiting on Friday after flying home Tursday night and have had serious stomach pain for weeks afterward. We have missed over a week of school and hasn't been able to get back into the pool for serious practices yet (we missed regionals and states as a result). Dr.s were stumped and they did a number of tests and everything came back normal - I can't blame the cruise directly, but I am certain that traveling during flu season, has more to do with our fate than anything.
We are planning our next cruise and it will be a 7 nighter or longer....we had a great time and I am certain Disney will be our cruise ship of choice next time as well....
