Wow, we did it! We left for our cruise! Check my last post for all of the drama leading up to this vacation, and it was A LOT. That first day when we flew out was a bit nerve wracking. Mom had just gotten her passport by the skin of her teeth, but then had to spend the night on the floor of the airport in Phoenix because of flight cancellations. Flights this year had been unreliable to say the least. We were nervous because our flight was getting in so late Florida time and the ship was leaving the next day. There wasn't any wiggle room for cancelled flights. Thankfully our flight actually left on time and we made it to Miami! The wait for the shuttle was a bit painful because it was so late and the shuttle was late (I think it was nearly 2 am when it came). Then we made it to the hotel and got checked in. Look at this ridiculous amount of stuff. You might think that having my parents come would make things easier as far as taking care of luggage. Two more adults to help carry things, right? Wrong. It was a circus trying to manage our kids, all of our stuff, all of my parents stuff, while Dad pushed Mom.
My girls loved these fun egg chairs in the lobby.
How Holland ended up sleeping on the giant bed.
April 17th/Day 2
On boarding day, we took the shuttle to the port and got in a giant line. They had to check everyone at security, immunization status (we all had to be immunize + have a negative test), and check in with the ship (get the key cards, show passports, etc.). It was quite the process that took hours. Thankfully we made it!
I remember boarding the ship, making it to our safety check point, and heading up to Garden Cafe for the Easter buffet. I was seriously in shock that we had actually made it! I couldn't believe it. It had been such an ordeal with the first cruise cancellation, and then the missing passport--not to mention the stress of covid tests, flight stress, and managing our four kids and parents that were more needy than kids. There were just so many hoops to jump through, and it actually worked out! I know I said this already, but I seriously couldn't believe it! We made it!!!!!!
I tried to send this to our family to say that we made it, but we actually already didn't have cell reception. I was still in shock that we had made it.
Beautiful Florida and handsome John
They had such a nice Easter buffet for us to enjoy. We all ate way too much and nearly gave ourselves stomach aches.
I loved these chocolate creations!
Fancy dessert? Yes please!
We couldn't get in our rooms right away, so we took the opportunity to explore the ship.
We noticed that everyone was getting settled in, so we took the chance to have the hot tubs to ourselves while we departed Miami. The four hot tubs actually hang off the edge of the ship. It was pretty cool.
We actually didn't need to worry because the ship only had about half of the number of passengers that it could hold, which was amazing. This, plus the fact that it was such a long cruise in the middle of the school year, meant that there were next to no other kids on the ship either. Our kiddos were practically celebrities. If John and I went somewhere without them, we got asked by complete strangers, where are the kids?
Another awesome moment from the first day on the ship was going to our rooms for the first time. The balcony rooms were so nice!! We were thoroughly spoiled by having them. They totally made the trip in so many ways because it was just so nice to be able to gaze at the sea in privacy. I loved it. We spotted so many fun animals from those balconies. Plus the bigger rooms were so nice! It was a long cruise and we needed the space.
We did a little mini Easter egg hunt in my parents' room. The kids all seemed to like their goodies. :) E & M stayed with my parents, and D & H stayed with us. We were so spoiled by having the rooms almost right next to each other.
Getting Easter baskets from the Easter Bunny.
Our first dinner in the fancy dining room "The Manhattan Room." This was quite the experience for our family. As a general rule, we really don't eat out as a family, but if we do it is places that we know exactly what we are going to get. It was pretty fun to tell the kids that they could order whatever they liked. Not only that, they got to order a appetizer, main dish, and dessert (every time!). As shown above, Ellie was our little adventurous eater. She tried all the kinds of fish that she could, even a fish gumbo. And she loved it all!
Darcy was a little spoiled girl. We told our server that she likes fruit and berries. And she gets served a glass goblet of berries. Actually Darcy was the only hard part of all this fancy dining. These kinds of dining experiences are not meant to be snappy. But a one year old isn't known for being patient while in a high chair. They gave her crayons and a paper to color on, and for sure she just colored all over that white tablecloth. Also, those berries, watermelon, and other fruits she ate got mushed all over it. I felt so bad for the laundry people. We did our best with trying to entertain her as best we could, but such a long wait almost every meal was pretty tricky with her.
We loved all of the fancy desserts. I actually didn't run into peanuts too much except in some dinner rolls. So random.
The couch got turned into a bed at night, and housekeeping got the Pullman bed down. It was pretty slick. I loved having someone clean up the bathroom twice a day. Not to mention that they cleaned up the rooms and made the beds.
Apr 18/Day 3
We started the day exploring the huge buffet for breakfast. Then we had to continue exploring the ship. The model of the Norwegian Encore was in the huge Observation Lounge. This lounge also had a small buffet that had food certain times of the day. All of the yummy sandwiches were on some type of pastry. Sandwiches are always better on some kind of fancy bread.
It was easy to forget on the ship how high up we were. Our rooms were on the 14th floor and the observation lounge was just a couple up from there. The water below us was actually pretty far away, but because we didn't have a frame of reference, it seemed a lot closer. We thought it was pretty cool to see Cuba in the distance this day. It took almost the whole day to sail around it.
Grandpa liked to walk with Darcy around the pool area. She spotted Mama!
We loved loved having the balconies, but it totally gave me nightmares thinking about the kids falling over the side. We had strict rules about not standing up on the chairs. It made me glad that the rail was made of glass so they could see out without trying to get above it.
Beautiful observation lounge. We liked playing card games there.
Besides the Main dining room there were two smaller dining rooms that were included--Taste and Savor. This one was Taste. They are so similar but the decor varied a little.
All of the crew wore masks all the time.
Deck 17 had a jogging track that was fun to walk around.
These pools were salt water. They drained them at night and pumped them full of ocean water the next morning. That meant that the pool water got warmer the further south we were.
The ocean is beautiful at night.
Apr 19/Day 4 The next morning we indulged in doing a little workout just ourselves. We downloaded a few workout videos and were able to continue our program even in the middle of the Caribbean.
The reason we felt like we needed to work out.
One feature of this ship was that there were some pretty cool extras that we had to pay for. We drove the the little cars on the race track. It was way more fun than I would have thought. Unfortunately I couldn't take any photos of the actual activity.
Those go carts went fast, but it was a little frustrating when you got stuck behind someone.
We were glad we had the wet suits on the more north days. The kids loved these ledges that only had 6 or so inches of water on them. They laid down and tried to not roll over with the rocking of the ship. It was surprising how much that water moved with the ship.
The casino area had this cool light fixture.
We completely disassembled the couch in our room and it left a nice platform to put Darcy's portacrib. Holland's bed got pulled down from the ceiling. It all worked better than I could have hoped.
This was one of our favorite appetizers--egg rolls!
I think she likes strawberry ice cream. Another unexpected perk of the ship was how much the girls liked the kids club--Splash Academy. I remember this night because we asked if the kids could get their dessert quickly because they wanted to go down to Splash Academy. It was on the 5th floor, so running them up and down a few times a day was a good workout. We always took the stairs when possible.
This server made some napkin creations for us. A rodent and a hat.
Darcy liked it even though she looks a little concerned.
Apr 20/Day 5
We woke up in the harbor of Cartagena, Colombia. It was a rainy, stormy day to start with. Actually our shore excursion was postponed for a bit because of the rain. They had everyone going on a shore excursion gather in the auditorium and they called out our tour numbers when it was time to exit the ship. It was a bit of a circus because didn't want to just sit still for an undetermined length of time. We went up and down the stairs, around the aisle in front of the stage and around again. We were worn out before we even started on our excursion.
We were required to wear masks on shore excursions. We got off the ship and loaded buses, fortunately the rain had slowed a bit. It was interesting to go through the old city and see all of the crazy flooded streets. They were windy and narrow and filled with water.
Check out the water on this road!
By the time we made it over to the old fort the weather had cleared quite a bit. This was our kids first experience with aggressive vendors.
This place was huge! It was too bad that our tour didn't allow time for anything but taking photos from the outside, but still pretty neat to see.
The Castillo San Felipe is the largest structure that the Spanish built in the Americas. It was originally built in 1657 because of a war between Spain and England. Cartagena was Spain's biggest seat of power in the America's, and the city was a constant target of other countries (like France and England) and even pirates. The original structure could only hold about 20 men and 4-6 cannons. This was not enough when Baron De Pointis (a French Privateer) arrived in Cartagena in April 1697 with a fleet of 28 ships armed with over 500 cannons and 4,000 men. He ended up taking and ransacking the city.
Later in 1741 a large fleet led by Edward Vernon arrived off the coast of Cartagena. Vernon had at his command over 120 ships and more than 20,000 men, including 12,000 foot soldiers. At first it looked like he was going to take the city easily (he even sent word that he had conquered and there were celebratory medals made). However, there had been a high cost to taking the outer fortifications of Cartagena. Many of his men had been killed or were sick with disease. Vernon decided to focus all of his resources taking the Castillo San Felipe, so that he would have a good spot to attack the rest of the city from. Vernon planned the siege for one morning the the ladders they brought to scale the fortress weren't tall enough to reach the top of the walls. The soldiers inside rained musket fire on them and the soldiers in the city shot at them from that angle. The British soldiers dropped like flies and the forces ended up retreating.
It was expanded in 1762 to the massive structure it is today and was considered impregnable. Apparently it was imposing enough that no one every tried to attack Cartagena again. Eventually it fell into disrepair, until in 1887 it was acquired by the Colombian government and was eventually restored and turned into a tourist site.
I really enjoyed driving around Cartagena. There were definitely more run down areas, but there were many darling streets also.
I love the balconies, plants, narrow streets, and the church at the end of the road.
Sometimes the fencing was quite intricate.
We were taken to a Colombian history museum. I thought all of the old cannons and artifacts were so interesting.
The had a model of a ship, which for the record didn't seem big enough to travel the width of the Atlantic Ocean.
Holland liked the little visitor on her shoe.
It sounded like this city was under attack frequently. No wonder there were so many war artifacts.
We saw a cultural dance show put on by 6 young adults. They did a great job. Sometimes I don't think I come from a very interesting culture. :)
Masks everywhere.
This is quite the specimen of the crown of thorns plant that Ellie has in her bedroom.
Sleepy baby on the bus.
I loved seeing the plumeria around.
We also drove around to see the old city walls around.
Old city, new city.
New city on top of old city.
Plumeria, balconies, and quite the parking lot.
I wish we could have taken time to walk along the old city walls and look out at the ocean. That is the trick about cruises though. You only get a little bit of time at the stops.
Castillo San Felipe. Pretty impressive.
Oh, she gave in a took a nap on the bus.
I loved the painted houses.
The Clock tower (or Torre del Reloj) is part of the main city gate leading into the walled city.
The Baluarte de San Ignacio is a bastion located in Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia. This bastion, originally called the Bastión de los Moros, is located on the side of the House of the Jesuits and is the work of Cristóbal de Roda. It is part of the extensive fortifications built by the Spanish to defend Cartagena de Indias.
On our way back to the ship, they dropped us off outside of an animal preserve/gift shop. It was so weird, yet cool. There were a zillion peacocks outside. When we went in there were all kinds birds and animals along a bunch of different paths. It was almost like a zoo, but not really.
We went in to this bird area and before you know it, this parrot landed on Miriam's arm and said "Hola!" It was awesome.
I thought this albino peacock was gorgeous.
Miriam was an attraction for the birds.
I loved the toucans! After our trip Darcy called all birds "toucans" for a while. I was delighted.
This parrot investigated Grandma too!
Apparently not nervous of people.
So many cool birds!
I love the banyan trees.
In front of this huge Colombia sign there was quite the show put on by monkeys. They climbed down this rope to get the food on the ground then hoisted themselves back up the rope. The best part was when a mommy monkey climbed down with the baby monkey hanging on to her belly.
Way too many people to get a good picture with the sign.
This stand of parrots was quite impressive.
That peacock was showing off right in front of Miriam.
An anteater! After enjoying all of the animals, we meandered through the gift shop, where we bought a little parrot statue, and Holland got a little turtle (she accidentally bumped it, and we were forced to buy it. Good thing she liked it!).
Then we walked back along the dock to the giant ship.
It really is absurdly huge.
Looking out at the port from the Observation Lounge.
Bye Colombia!
Fancy dessert! I loved all of the chocolate accents they did. It makes me want to make them at home.
Not a bad view for working on school assignments. Gazing at the ocean is so relaxing.
The water looks a lot closer than it is.
Navigating through the islands outside of Cartagena.
I love this girls like crazy.
Our own balconies are seriously amazing.
Miriam, John and I played some Skull King in the Observation lounge while we sailed away from Colombia.
Not our worst game playing spot.
We played long enough that the sun went down. The Pirate themed game felt particularly appropriate.
Sunset from the balcony.
The colors were spectacular. Too bad the camera doesn't pick it up that well.
