Royal Caribbean Cruise 2015 – Part 3

Life on the boat was great.  I didn’t have to cook or clean up after we had eaten or wash those dishes!  Now we had gotten a room that sleeps 4 but there’s only one bed and one couch in the room.  I assume that the couch folds out into a bed, but I can’t confirm because we never asked our room attendant to change it.  Which was a mistake, we should have because toddlers move a lot when they sleep and make even a king size bed small.  Mr. A and I didn’t sleep well, one night Jensen would decide to sleep across all the pillows and Ian loves to snuggle up right next to you, practically pushing you off the bed.  Really reminds me of the nursery song “Ten in the Bed”.

Besides the bed situation, the room is larger than the standard staterooms, the bathroom only has a shower though.  I had signed us up for some on boat activities as well.  This particular cruise also had Dream Works characters on board and you could eat breakfast with them.  Breakfast was in the main dining room and a waiter brings you to your table.  It just so happened that Elvis was also the waiter for this as well, so the kids really got to know him.  3 characters showed up and went around the room and shook hands and took photos with each table.  All while eating a delicious breakfast.  The breakfast menu was amazing, but breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.  The kids ate a lot, probably because the first thing they brought out was chocolate pastries of different kinds.

First up was Fiona from Shrek, all the characters were really into character.  It was quite awesome.

So as you can see Ian is missing in the photos with Fiona and King Julian, but then below he’s there for Gloria.  He refused to take photos with the other two, but when Gloria came out he yells “I LOVE HER” and couldn’t wait to take a photo and even hug her…

The photographers through the cruise was there and they took photos with their camera, but they offer to take photos for you with your own camera first.  So no need to buy the expensive photos later, unless of course they are amazing.  The breakfast was extra $10 per adult, so $20 dollars total for us, that is cheap add on!  Though the breakfast was extra there were plenty of character meetings elsewhere on the boat and there was even a parade, which I missed because I was getting a massage that did not cost $20…

Here are the photos we tried to take with the other characters

Since this cruise was the week after Thanksgiving the whole boat was decorated with Christmas decorations.  We tried to take some nice photos around the boat on the two dress up nights, it didn’t work out very well…

Some other amazing things this boat had was a huge outdoor screen you can watch while you swim, a splash pad for the kiddos, an ice skating rink, a spa, a gym, plenty of food.  Every night they have a show, we didn’t get to go to all of them.  We did get to enjoy two of them  one was a cirque du soleil type show and it was very cool, another night there was a comedian and he was of course very funny.  So we would’ve like to enjoy more shows, but like I mentioned in part one of our cruise vacation Ian didn’t want to go to the kids program by himself.  If Jensen was older and able to join I’m sure he would’ve been fine.  We did have one kid free night, we decided to get the in room babysitter, which cost 18 an hour and we were gone for 2 hours.  Two of the ship’s staff was in our room watching our two kids.

This boat also had a cupcake shop where they had cupcake decorating classes,of course I signed up for that!  So while the kids and Mr. A took a nap I went and made these two cupcakes.  The boat was quite turbulent this day and so when I was waiting to have them wrapped up to bring back to the room my Christmas tree fell on the floor 🙁  But the instructor gave me his!! 🙂

We also got to celebrate Mr. A’s birthday while on the boat!!  Look how embarrassed he is.

Just a couple more pictures to wrap up our week long trip:

Let me leave you with some tips for cruising with young kids.

• bring a stroller, I recommend something small and light, the elevators can be crowded with wheelchairs
• bring your own sippy cups, all the cups they have are glasses with no lids
• don’t assume your child will go to the kids program, they will not let you sit in there for a little bit so your child doesn’t feel like you are abandoning them
• book excursions before your cruise, the line to sign up for them while on the boat gets long
• Our kids have the little back packs by Skip Hop (it has a leash we never actually use) so they can carry their own sippy cup and diapers/change clothes
• Bring extra clothes/undergarments for your kids and yourself!!  Luckily Ian didn’t have any accidents but you never know!
• Bring electronic entertainment, there’s lots to do on the boat, but sometimes little kids don’t want to do that
• Bring some small toys for the kids to entertain themselves in the room, we brought 5 small cars and that was good enough