Days 6 & 7 (Luke's Birthday at Coco Cay!)

The other blogs I wrote on the ship, so my memory was clearer as to what we did. This one I am writing from home a few days after the cruise's conclusion. Day 6 was a sea day. We spent the morning on the pool decks. Kara and Luke did the waterslides and pools. We did miniature golf again and Thomas tried out the zipline. It was a fun morning. Kara also tried the flow rider. The height requirement was 52", which we thought Luke would pass. However, he measured about a 1/4 of an inch too short. He was VERY disappointed in this. 

At 12, we had Kara's birthday lunch. She wanted to try Taste of Royal, where each course comes from a different specialty restaurant. It was me, Kara and Marta. We showed Anna the menu and she was not interested. The three of us enjoyed the experience.

Luke went to the kid's club, but I don't recall what the rest of us did in the afternoon. It was lobster night in the main dining room, so it was a good food day. There was no family show, instead, it was an adult comedian. Thomas and I went and enjoyed the act. The girls checked out the teen club but did not stay long. Jack watched Luke. The comedy show ended around 8. After, Thomas and I walked around the ship for a bit. We had reservations to see a classic rock cover band at 10:15. However, it didn't end up starting until 1035. We had told Jack we would be back around 11, so we had to cut the show short to let Jack get to bed (in retrospect, we should have had Luke sleep in their room). What we did see was really amazing, they definitely had the 80s band look and feel (in all the best ways).

Thursday was our last full day. It was also Luke's 8th birthday and Perfect Day at Coco Cay. Originally, we weren't supposed to get to Coco Cay until 10, which was super disappointing, as we had tickets to the water park and knew there was another large(ish) ship scheduled to arrive earlier. However, we ended up getting there around 8. We hurried to breakfast and then went down to the gangway. We were the second group off the ship when they opened the doors around 8:40. We went straight to the water park. The other ship had docked earlier and there were already a lot of people in the water park. 

The largest slide, Devil's Peak--which is the biggest in North America and requires climbing 14 flights to the top, was on a virtual line system. We were able to get a return time of 930-10. We did a few slides in the that tower and then went to the other tower and got in line for The Slingshot, a family raft ride. We waited about 35 minutes and when we got off, the line was at least twice as long. We did the mat racers twice, with no wait and then did Devil's Peak. It was very fun. Anna didn't want to try, but the rest of us did it and loved it. It was around 10 when we got off and all the lines for the big slides were very long. We tried to get another return time for Devil's Peak again, but they were out. She told us it would open back up at 2 with a regular line. Luke played in the obstacle pool and we had a snack and did the wave pool and a few smaller slides.

I caught this picture just as Luke slipped from the "rock wall"

Next, we headed out of the park and to the beach. The water was really murky, so I quickly gave up on snorkeling and enjoyed sitting in the water. Kara and Luke played in the sand, while the others persisted with snorkeling. We went to a delicious lunch and then Luke wanted to check out the "sports area". Anna and I hung out in the hammocks and the others played basketball.

By now, it was after 2, so we decided to see what the line for Devil's Peak looked like. Unfortunately, it was very long, but the other slides didn't look as bad. We asked Luke what he wanted and he wanted to do more slides. So, we did. We tried the Twister, a raft ride that had a super long line in the morning, but was probably 15ish minutes around 2:30 and was my favorite. Luke did more obstacles and everyone did more slides. The Devil's Peak stayed around 90 minutes, so we never did that again, but enjoyed everything else. Luke, Thomas, Jack and Kara were able to do all 13 slides (most multiple times). Anna and I did everything we wanted to do. 

We got back on the ship around 330 and showered and rested.  At dinner, the waiters brought Luke a piece of cake and we sang happy birthday. After dinner, we went to the ice-skating show, which was amazing! They had some cool features, including projections that covered all of the ice. From there, we went to the family "hush party." That was a little frustrating, Jack refused to go at all and the girls didn't want to dance. They sat in a corner and looked surly. Thomas and I danced, but apparently we were embarrassing. So, Thomas left. I persisted a little longer, but the girls left and then Luke got mad if I was on a different channel then him (everyone wears headphones, which have two channels. Your headphones light up for your channel, so if you take off the headphones, you can hear people with your color singing along to what you are listening to and others singing to a different song). I thought it was really fun, but Luke was a little grouchy, so we didn't last very long. 

We went back to the room and packed. Everyone was very sad that it was the last night. The next morning, we got off the ship around 8:15 and were in our car and driving home at 8:37. I will do a short recap post (maybe) at some point.

Port Visits

Sunday, we went to Roatan, Honduras. We really wanted to snorkel, but Luke wasn’t old enough for the ship’s excursions. So, we booked a private tour with “Cleve’s Tours and Adventures”. He was recommended by people on the Royal Caribbean Facebook page and has over 1200 five-star reviews on Trip Advisor, so I felt good about the day.

We got off the ship as soon as it was docked at 830 and Cleve’s son, Jeremiah, was waiting for us. We found Cleve, who took us on a tour of the island and told us about its culture and the five groups of people who live there. Then, we went out on his boat. He showed us more of the island from the water and let Thomas drive. All of us enjoyed going fast.

We visited two snorkeling sites, I think he called one the Aquarium and one the wall. Both were amazing! Roatan has part of the Mesoamerican Reef, which is the second largest reef in the world (next to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia). We saw lots of tropical fish and amazing coral. The water was crystal clear and we could see all around us without any murkiness. Luke got sick of it pretty quick and stayed on the boat with Jeremiah. Anna doesn’t really like knowing what is in the ocean underneath her, but she swam with us. Cleve guided us around the sites. Both areas had deep trenches bordered by walls of coral. In the second area, there were huge drop offs, I think in some areas Cleve said it was 80 feet (and gets deeper further from shore). It was like seeing cliffs underwater. We spent a couple of hours snorkeling. Then, we went back to the van and saw more of the island before heading back to the ship. I think the whole experience lasted about 5 hours. Our port visit was only 7 hours, so that was really all we had time for (we like a big buffer to ensure we are back to the ship on time). Cleve and Jeremiah were great tour guides and we learned a lot. Everyone enjoyed the experience.

We had a late lunch on the ship and then Luke went to the kid’s club. We had dinner at our regular time of 5:30 (we have the early seating) and went to the evening show: The Tap Factory. It had drumming, tap dancing and a contortionist. It was good and the cast is very talented, but I did not like it nearly as much as I liked Voices.

On Monday, we were in Cozumel. Because we had just visited there in November, I did not plan an excursion. We went into the port area and did a little shopping and spent the rest of the day hanging around the ship. The ship is always fun on a port day, because it is so much less crowded. Luke and Thomas played ping pong and then Luke and Jack played basketball. Luke also spent some time in the kid’s club. Kara, Jack and I did trivia (we did not come close to winning) and Kara got a Johnny Rocket’s milkshake. Anna and I also did ice skating. 

The show that night was in the Aqua Theater, which will eventually host InTENse. However, it is not quite ready, so they showed us about half of the aqua show and about 30 minutes of other entertainment, including Victor Kee, who is an amazing juggler that we saw on AGT a few seasons ago. The aqua show has a large cast that includes 5 former Olympic divers! It was pretty amazing what they can do and we loved Victor Kee (I wish they had given him a full show).

Tuesday, we went to Costa Maya and did an excursion to see the Chacchoben Mayan ruins. The ruins were really cool, but the tour was not great. The guide was a little disjointed and rushed us through. I would have liked to learn a little bit more, but it was still a good experience and I am glad we did it. Marta and Frank joined us and it was nice to have some extra time with them.

Jack wanted a picture with himself in front of one of the pyramids to show scale. Can you find him?

It was more of the same back on the ship. Except, after dinner they had a “name that country song” trivia and I knew that with Thomas on our team, we could not lose! And, I was right! He knew almost every song and every artist. Kara and I were happy to finally be on a winning team. After the big victory, we saw the evening show which was a magician, Jamie Alan. He is apparently very famous in England. We all liked the show, but felt there was too much technology involved. His last trick was the best, it was pure sleight of hand with cards and it was very, very cool. He was making cards appear and disappear like nobody’s business.

Cruise Days 1 & 2

Last year, we were scheduled to go on a cruise over Spring Break. It was going to be our first time on one of Royal Caribbean’s mega, Oasis class ships. We had booked the cruise in October of 2019 for March 2021. Then, Covid hit and the cruise was cancelled. When cruising resumed, we rescheduled for March 2022 on Allure of the Seas. Then, a few months later, we saw that the newest ship, Wonder of the Seas would have its second sailing that week and the price was very reasonable, so we switched over. I had my doubts the trip would take place, but I am writing this from the balcony of the ship!

Day one was Friday, March 11, which was the first day of Spring Break. We left the house at 7 for the drive to Fort Lauderdale and arrived in plenty of time for our 11am check-in. Everything went smoothly and we were onboard by 1145. We had lunch and then Kara did the zipline and Kara, Thomas, Luke and Jack did the Ultimate Abyss (a slide that takes you from Deck 16 to Deck 6). Anna and I held belongings and waited to hear the reviews (people liked it, but it was a little uncomfortable for the taller Wilsons). Then, Luke, Thomas and I tried out the water slides. With my rashguard top, I went really slow. In fact, I got stuck in one of the slides and had to push myself out. It was very claustrophobic feeling. There was one slide that we all agreed was super fun and I hope to try again (it is called the tornado and you go into a funnel type contraption). Meanwhile, Jack, Anna and Kara hung out on deck and ate ice cream. After the water slides, we had a snack at the Mexican restaurant and shared some nachos and burritos, which were really good.

The Tilleys are also onboard (Frank, Marta, Matt, Cristin and George) and we met up for our 5:30 dinner, which was delicious with amazing service. We relaxed in our rooms after dinner and called it an early night-- it had been a long day.

 Day 2 was a Sea Day. Thomas and I started the day with a visit to the gym followed by banana smoothies. Luke went to the kid’s club in the morning. The rest of us did some puzzle game. We solved several clues, but they gave us an incorrect portion of the puzzle, so obviously we didn’t get to the final answer. The girls and I also did another game. We had 20 word questions, like ATfrankfrankRA=Frank Sinatra or ECNALG=backwards glance, and got 10 of them right. Some of them were super difficult and some were clearly from a different culture (one answer was “It fell off the back of a lorry”). But, we had fun trying to figure it out. We also listened to some jewelry spiel and got free stuff. They did a raffle and Marta won! She got a really pretty diamond pendant. We explored the ship more, Luke did the rock climbing wall and Anna and I tried the Abyss. Some of us played miniature golf, rode the carousel, had milkshakes at Johnny Rockets, etc. Some of us sat on the balcony and read, or took naps, or explored with a partner at various times. 

Miniature golf with a view

The rockwall is huge! We weren't sure if Luke would make it to the top. You can also see some of the Abyss in the background (the purple slide).

But, he did!

It was a formal night and the girls were excited to dress up, Anna even did Kara's hair. They looked so grown-up!

After dinner, we went to our first show—Voices. The level of talent was amazing. It was the first cruise ship show I’ve been to where the audience gave the cast a standing ovation. I loved it. Luke and Jack opted out and I was disappointed for them. After the show, we walked through the Central Park area and listened to a live band for a few minutes. Then, I decided to go back to the room. My room key is not for the room I sleep in (we have one adult in each room, but we have Luke with us and the older kids directly across the hall). But, sometimes, I can use the app to open “my” door. I went to check on Luke and Jack and realized that I had someone else’s room key (I had gotten a drink at the show and hadn’t realized they gave me back a different card). Then, Luke and Jack came into the hall with me and I tried to use the app to open the other door. And, it wouldn’t work. We were all stuck in the hallway with no key to either room! I called Thomas, who quickly came and let the boys in while I went to Guest Services for a new card. 

I fell asleep a little bit earlier, but woke up a million times. Both Thomas and I were up for good at 4:30. I am already tired, but I know I won’t be able to fall back asleep. Hopefully, the day will be so fun that I don’t notice I am exhausted!

Minor Updates

Our days have been pretty similar. Jack wrapped up his most recent basketball season. His team ended up being really good and Jack definitely improved over the season. He will play again at the YMCA in a few weeks for another season. Luke's baseball is going well. I feel like we are spending a lot of time at the fields, but he hasn't gotten sick of it yet. 

Luke is playing catcher. He gets a little nervous in the catcher's box and kept scooting further and further back :)

Anna got new, fancier ice skates. She is hoping to start learning jumps soon. Kara took a babysitting class on Saturday and is now CPR and first aid certified. She enjoys babysitting and is really good with kids. 

We went to Universal a couple of times. Once, Thomas and I went with the girls. We watched the Mardi Gras parade and had a lot of fun and got tons of beads (over 20 strands each). The boys ended up being slightly sad they didn't go, so we took them on a Wednesday after school. Luke got enough beads to hand out to all his classmates.

Waiting for the parade to start

Luke's class had a field trip to SeaWorld on Thursday. Our passes are expired, so on the Friday before the field trip, we told him we had to go to SeaWorld so we could renew (the website wasn't working). He decided he didn't really want to go. Thomas had planned on chaperoning, but they had a ton of chaperones, so it was not a big deal for him to back out. Instead, he and Luke spent the day doing whatever Luke wanted. Thomas even spent the night in his room. They played board games, read books, played the Switch and went to lunch at Dairy Queen. 

Meanwhile, I took Anna to the orthodontist to get her Herbst taken off. She wore it for a year and it apparently worked, so we hopefully have avoided jaw surgery! I guess there is still a chance the jaw will revert, but I am cautiously optimistic. It is now in a nice position and the teeth are well-aligned. She wouldn't let me take any pictures, but taking it out was quite the process. Her mouth was too small for some of their tools, so it was a little difficult to remove. Her mouth bled and was sore for a couple of days. We are happy to have it out!

Both Kara and Jack got their scores back from the solo and ensemble festival and ended up with Superiors. They were very happy. 

And, for this week's random picture--I went to lunch with a friend and ordered this beauty. It was ham, turkey, cheese and egg as a waffle sandwich with whipped cream. It was so pretty, I had to take a picture. It was delicious!