Birthday Cruise, Days 1 and 2!

On October 3rd, Anna and Jack turned 14. I know that 13 is officially a teenager, but 14 has always seemed so much older to me than 13. Maybe because it is the age you start high school? Regardless, to celebrate, we decided to do a weekend cruise. Cruises are pretty cheap right now and the port is only 45 minutes from our house. We booked on Mariner of the Seas and departed on Friday, October 1st. They have somewhat stringent Covid protocols. We had to all test negative before the cruise and then Luke had to test again at the port (because he is not vaccinated).  The kids had some tests at school, so we sent them in morning and worked a half day. 

We got to the port around 1:45 and the check-in line was looonnnngggg. Luke's Covid test took 45 minutes for results. And, from car to ship, it took us over 2 hours. We weren't prepared for the long waits and people were kind of grumpy. Our friends who got there at 11 were on in 15 minutes. So, next time we will get there earlier. Once onboard, we found our rooms and then met up with Marta and Frank and had a snack. 

We played miniature golf, which was a fun 9-hole course and watched as we pulled away from port. 

Main dining room

Pointing at the puffy clouds

Saturday, we were in Nassau, but didn't get off the ship. If you are unvaccinated, you could only leave the ship if you were on a paid excursion and we did not have anything reserved. So, Luke went to the kid's club in the morning. Kara, Jack and I did trivia. We were bad and only got 6/16 right. However, we weren't the worst! Everyone "won" a highlighter, so we took our participation prize and were content. Thomas grabbed Luke and we met up at the buffet for lunch and then did the top deck activities--the sky pad, water slides, and flow rider. 

I didn't do the skypad (I don't do well with virtual reality). But, everyone who participated said it was fun. They got to pick a virtual reality scenario. Thomas and Kara did a hop through time where you had to jump through portals to get to different times and also had to jump to avoid hazards (like two ships shooting canons at each other). Anna did candy crush, where you had to jump to get the candy and she said it looked just like the game. Jack and Luke did music. Luke said you had to shoot music cubes to earn points.

Birthday buddies!

Kara loved the Flowrider!

Waterslides were also a big hit

Waiting for the entertainment to begin!

That took up most of the afternoon. We had another delicious dinner and then saw a funny juggler (world record holder) and called it a night around 9:30.