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.