All at Sea

So...four months ago I went on a cruise with my family (husband, kids, and my parents). Although I haven’t written about it until now, it’s been fresh in my head the entire time. However, I am not planning to go through the details of each and every day. Instead, I will share the highlights.

*The pool area for the kids. Since my kids love swimming and water activities, this was perfect for them. They had a shallow pool, splash park, current pool/mini-lazy river, and a hot tub that felt more like a bathtub so kids could go in it too. We spent a lot of time by the pool area. There was also a soft serve ice cream machine, as an added bonus.

*The shows. Probably the best part of the trip was all the entertainment in one place. We saw a full Broadway production of Mamma Mia on the first night. My daughter loved it and made me sing the songs with her afterward. There was an ice rink, where they put on Ice Capade quality shows. One of the shows was about the cruise ship in the style of a Monopoly game. The other was a How to Train Your Dragon ice show. One of the nights, there was a show in the main theater where they did singing, dancing, and acrobatics (Blue Planet). It had a bunch of popular songs done in different styles and sung by some of the actors from Mamma Mia. It was visually pleasing too. Another night, they featured a ventriloquist, Ronn Lucas, who was really funny. There was even an aquatic theater where they did a water show. (The water show was probably the least of my favorites because it felt slow and repetitive, but some of the stunts were cool. My husband liked it a lot.) On our final night, we saw a family-friendly comedy act, which made up for us not getting a chance to see the adults only comedy acts.

Waiting to see Mamma Mia

The ice rink turns into a regular floor for watching other shows

Oceanaria at the aquatic theater

Blue Planet (photo credit: www.royalcaribbeanblog.com)

*The excursions. We weren’t always at sea. We spent one day in Labadee, Haiti, which is privately owned by Royal Caribbean. The kids were happy to finally spend time at a beach and loved playing around in the water. The next day was in Jamaica. We docked at Falsmouth and then met our tour guide who took us to Ocho Rios for our visit to Blue Hole. That was really impressive. I’m a coward when it comes to jumping into depths of water from any height, but the tour guide there was really nice about it. He even carried my daughter the entire time. Later that week, we went to Cozumel and went to a stingray beach. We had lots of stingrays swimming all around us and the guides showed us how to feed and pet them. (I did not feed them as I wasn’t going to hold a dead fish in order to do so.) Then my husband and sons went snorkeling and they enjoyed that a lot. (Again, so not my thing.) We got back onto the boat earlier than most people, so the dining areas and pool were not crowded.

Labadee

Labadee

Blue Hole

*The ship itself. Allure of the Seas is huge. There are different sections, like the Promenade, which has restaurants, shops, and entertainment areas; Central Park, which actually looks like a section of Central Park in NYC and also has restaurants and little sitting areas; The Boardwalk, which has the aquatic theater, a carousel, stuff for kids to do, etc.; a kid’s activity center that has a science lab, craft room, movie theater, etc.; the area with the ice rink, jazz club, and comedy club; three large dining rooms, as well as snack bars and lounges. There is just so much to explore and take in!

Promenade

Carousel at The Boardwalk

*Evening entertainment. You basically had to clone yourself to do it all. There were so many things going on at one time. My favorite was The Quest. It was like a scavenger hunt game show. Each team had two captains, one male and one female. The game show host would give a task to one of the captains to get an item from the audience and do something random with it. It was so funny and involved a lot of audience participation. (Here is a video I found online from someone else, as we didn't get one the night we did it.)
Another night, I participated in this game called “If You Know it, Sing it.” I ended up helping our team win by knowing the words to “Mamma Mia.” (Thanks to my daughter who made me sing it with her all the time.) There was a woman on my team who was clearly drunk and kept hogging the microphone even when she didn’t know the words. I was especially annoyed when she did it during “Obladi, Oblada.” (Anyone who has watched Life Goes On in the 80's should know all the words to that song!) There was another woman on my team who balanced out my annoyance for the drunk lady, as she grabbed the microphone from the other team during “Beat It” and just rocked out. One night, they had dancing to 80's music. The music was super loud though. However, my younger son was dancing all silly and someone on the entertainment staff gave him a prize. Good thing I won the same prize at the singing contest because my daughter was so jealous and wanted it too.
One of the evenings, my older son and I went to a jazz concert where they were performing songs from movies, TV shows, and musicals. The lead singer’s name is Simon Drew and he was giving away his CDs at the end, so I got one of them. My son and I got a kick out of him saying that every song was his “all-time favorite.” (In a British accent, no less.) We’d say that about every song after that night.

*Food/Dining. The dining staff was accommodating to our dietary needs and even gave us challah and Kosher wine on Friday night. They were even good about getting our reservations changed so we didn’t have to eat so late with the kids. Since we had limited options, it was easy to get bored of certain food items after a while.

We didn’t make any new friends, as it was too hard to socialize while focusing on our kids. We saw a lot of the same people around the boat, but never made the effort to chat with them or introduce ourselves. One person who stood out was this woman with extremely frizzy hair. My hair has a mind of its own, but I’m not brave enough to avoid conditioner or gel. I applaud her for not caring how wild her hair was and just letting it go the way it wanted.

Also, unless your kids are really close in age, the child care programming doesn’t work well if they want to stay together. We found that out the hard way and it was very frustrating. Needless to say, we did not have a “date night.” We also had to take turns relaxing during pool time, as someone had to be watching our daughter. I did get a little reading time in, but I usually wanted to sleep when I had the chance to relax by myself.

Overall, we had a great time and the kids already want to go on another cruise. If that’s the case, I’d probably want something even more kid-friendly with opportunities to socialize with other families. Not to say this wasn’t kid-friendly. It was sponsored by Dreamworks! However, if the kids don’t want to go to child care because of their lame rules, there should at least be more entertainment options for them at night. You know a cruise will make them into insomniacs! Perhaps a late night sundae bar would do the trick? Or another family friendly show?

Clearly it was a memorable trip if I had all this to share four months later!

Check out some video and photo montages from my husband:
Day 1 (Boarding the ship and first night at sea)
Day 2 (At sea, formal night)
Day 3 (Labadee and the singing contest)
Day 4 (Jamaica)

There's one more coming that I'll share once it's available.