So you all know that I love planning trips (half the fun of a trip is the planning I always say) but the cruise thing was new for me. Here's a blog post about 12 tips I would give first time cruisers based on our experience.
12 tips before boarding your first cruise ship
I would typically break our trip reports out by day and have multiple posts for the trip report. This time I'm going to summarize in just one post because I don't have the pictures I usually do and the days kind of ran together.
Getting There
We flew into Tampa the day before the cruise was scheduled to depart. We were picked up by our hotel and ate dinner at the hotel that night. We headed to bed and woke the next morning to be taken to the port by our hotel driver.
Getting on the Ship
We arrived at the port around noon to get onto the boat. People and taxis and vans EVERYwhere. Luggage was handled by our driver and we got in line to check-in. Multiple steps, lots of security and long lines. This was a frustrating and long process as thousands of us all were waiting to load the ship. I heard somebody say later on that it seems to work best to arrive very early (10 a.m.-ish?) or very late (3:00-ish) because most people seem to arrive right in the middle.
We are told we can go on the ship but our room won't be ready until around 1:30. We head to an upper deck to eat some lunch and have a drink. So. many. people. We weren't off to a good start as thousands of us were waiting on our rooms to be ready.
Finally in Our Cabin
At 1:30, we head to our room, cabin 7271. We have a balcony room on an upper level deck near the center of the ship. We were very fortunate as this is a good location.
The steward pulled the bed down from the ceiling and Blake had this bed, Payton had the couch below as a bed and Andy and I had the full-sized bed for ourselves.
Blake had fears of falling out of the bed so he strapped himself down.
Dining
Every night, we had an assigned dinner time of 6 p.m. and were seated at the same table with the same two servers. This was a highlight of the trip as we loved the food and our servers, Heshbron and Juan. They were delightful and we were spoiled by such great service.
Lunch was open buffet in various eating areas available on Deck 9.
Breakfast EVERY day was room service (included, no extra cost). Andy and I would often sit on our balcony and eat breakfast and chat while letting the kids sleep.
View from our balcony
Kids Clubs
The kids were enrolled in Kids Clubs on our arrival day. Blake participated in the Kids Club everyday at least for a little while. He's a challenge to keep up with 24/7 for a week and it was a nice break for everyone for him to have kids activities to do. He often opted to eat dinner with the kids club which was a kids buffet they got to eat from while Andy and I enjoyed a nice, lingering dinner with a bottle of wine.
Payton participated in her club off and on and met a girl who happens to live in KC that she would often do things with outside of the club.
Ports of call
- Cayman. Our first port of call was Cayman where FOUR ships were there at the same time and it is a tendered port so we have to take small boats to and from the ship. We just had plans to catch a bus to a beach this day so we slept in and avoided the rush from the early crowd. We were able to get right on a boat and get to the port easily.
Blake on the tender boat (he's sensitive to light and his old sunglasses didn't fit anymore. The first thing we did at the port was get him some new ones so he didn't have this face all day.)
Other ships also at Cayman when we were.
We got on a bus and took it for a few minutes to Seven Mile Beach (which is really more like 4 miles). Our plan was just to hang out on the beach and shop a bit on this day.
We ate lunch on the beach and Blake fed bread to the birds.
We all took the bus back to the port. Andy and the kids got on a tender boat to head back to the ship while I took a few minutes to shop. I got some rum cakes and headed back.
- Belize. Ummmm....I have NO pictures of our day in Belize. This was ANOTHER port with four ships and also a tendered port except this time we had to get off the boat really early to be at an excursion that we booked. We were fortunate to be on the first tender boat and met our waiting van at the port. We got in the van and headed out to cavetube about an hour inland. It was fantastic and we had a great guide that took care of us considering our group had three kids under 10 years old. We floated on tubes on a river and went in and out of pitch black caves. Payton ate termites on our walk to the river (not kidding...she ATE TERMITES and they tasted like mint). Payton also swung from a rope into the river. No camera because I didn't want it to get wet in the river! I'm very frustrated to not have any pics. Anyway, great day and interesting experience. Highly recommend Major Tom's Cave Tubing.
- Isla Roatan, Honduras. Oh baby! This was our last port and the best by far. First of all, it wasn't a tendered port so getting on and off the ship was much easier. Secondly, the excursion I had booked was waiting for us and we headed out with Pirates of the Caribbean canopy tour to zip line through the jungles of Honduras. Andy was very irritated with me for booking this excursion because he said Blake would never do it. I had shown Blake the pictures and videos beforehand and he said he was ok with it. I wanted to try to push him to do something adventurous since he can be pretty timid.
So we get there and they talk us into trying the Extreme course rather than the traditional one.
The four of us, all suited up and ready to go.
We get to our first zip line and our guides give us some basic instructions and I go first. It was scary to jump off the platform but once I was going through the air, it was so beautiful and fun and not scary. Next up was Payton.
She said she expected to scream but was surprised how unscary it actually was.
Finally, the boys went together.
Blake wasn't scared at ALL. He loved it sooo much.
We repeated this process on 7 more zip lines of varying length and height. On two of them, Blake went alone because they were setup in a way that allowed him to make it all the way despite his small size.
Bare with me as I share several of these pics. We just loved this.
My baby boy, all by himself!
My two babies, going together.
At the end of the lines, there was this pet monkey that was kept there that, of course, was glued to Payton. It is a proven fact that all animals and children love Payton.
We wrapped up our time at the zip lines and I had arranged for our driver to take us to a beach for the remainder of our time in Honduras. This is where we were.
My baby girl. What a gorgeous place.
Kids kayaking
Ok, so this place was amazing. We sat in hammocks and Adirondack chairs, we had drinks, we walked the beach. It was amazing. The kids didn't want to go but the driver arrived and it was time to go.
Days at Sea
We had 3 days at sea where we didn't stop at a port at all. The first part of the week, we had a hard time getting into the groove of the ship. So many things scheduled and we weren't sure how to navigate it all. By mid-week, we had gotten into a groove and split our time between time together, time apart, attending shows, going to the casino, napping, etc.
Returning Home
Got off the ship at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday and then took a taxi to the airport where we had about 4 hours until our flight. Flew to KC, picked up our dog and got home around 10:30 that night.
Our thoughts on cruising
After all the fun we had, it may be surprising that we don't think we'll probably cruise again. It's just not really our way to travel. We'd much prefer to go to a foreign country away from Americans and learn to speak the local language a bit, eat local food and have a bit more cultural experience. I am thankful for this cruise though because it was a lot of fun and introduced us to Honduras which I am planning on making our next international trip. Can't wait.
It's a pretty busy one. Softball game, last days of school, dentist appointments, packing and then we drive to KC on Friday to begin our 9 days away from home. Oh, and I'm starting a blog as a side business but not really looking at making money yet. Just building content and getting setup right now. More on that in the near future.
Sure, our itinerary got revised due to Swine Flu and layoffs are heavy on our minds and the economy sucks but....
We won't remember any of it when our view is of the ocean for 7 days straight. As Andy said, it's nice to have something to look forward to.
From an ebook I'm reading:
For example, on a train ride between Slovakia
and Hungary a couple of years ago, I figured out that the cost of visiting 100 countries would be roughly equal to that of buying a new S.U.V. When I saw how relatively little that was, I felt encouraged.
I gave up the hypothetical large vehicle and received the world in return.
We had been on hold with vacation plans due to job insecurity but Andy recently told me to go ahead and plan a trip. I'm pretty sure he did it to save me from a trip to a mental hospital. It worked.
And then Andy found out more layoffs are coming this month at work. At least we have a trip to look forward to.
Little known fact: we've never taken a family vacation with just the 4 of us. We've always been with other people which is fun but it will be nice to just have the 4 of us for the first time.
So I set out doing what I like to do: research, research, research. The requirements for the trip were that a beach be involved, plenty of activity to keep Blake busy and some time with just Andy and me needed to be included.
I researched lots of islands off the coast of Florida, various areas of California, all-inclusives in a few countries and finally decided where we'd go: on a cruise.
Since we require 4 plane tickets, the airfare is often the thing that dictates our plans. I was having trouble finding somewhere affordable that we could fly but kept coming back to Tampa because it was so much cheaper than other places. I looked at maybe just staying in the Tampa area and maybe even driving down to Sarasota. I came across the cruise options out of Tampa and they had one for our dates and a Kansas resident discount was available that gave us a balcony room for the same price as an interior room.
So, the last week of May, we'll be sailing on the Carnival Legend (hate to be a snob but I never thought I'd go on a Carnival cruise but this one gets fantastic reviews) and going to the ports in Belize City, Grand Cayman, Honduras and Cozumel.
Excursions are currently being discussed and booked, kids passports are being applied for and shopping for our vacation clothes is being done. Can't wait.
Cave tubing in Belize
Zip line in Honduras
Swimming with dolphins
....and beaches galore.
Now the next inevitable step has begun: explaining to Blake how a cruise ship works. Shows have been recorded and watched to discuss how a ship is assembled, how the food is prepared, the engines required to power the whole boat, how the wiring is put together, where the ship gets the fuel, etc. All of these are questions he asked us immediately and thankfully there are shows to answer it because we didn't know. Maybe after he gets his questions answered, he'll be able to focus on just having fun. I know the rest of us will.
On Saturday, December 27, we headed out to the Arch. The temps were unseasonably warm and we just had to walk a couple of blocks to get there.
View from the patio area at our hotel.
Walking toward the Arch
At the base of the Arch
Once inside, we got tickets to attend the movie to explain how the Arch was built and then take the tram up to the top of it.
While we waited for the movie to begin, we headed to the museum which is arranged in stages by decade. I would love to tell you what any of it meant but I didn't bother to check. A few museums interest me but this one did not. The layout was interesting though.
At this point, it was time to go watch the film about the construction of the Arch. The film was old but very interesting. They expected a dozen people to die in the construction but not one life was lost. Watching how the structure was built was terrifying though. Amazing what they overcame to construct the very unique shape.
Then it was time to ride the tram to the top of the Arch. Blake was slightly terrified and of course had to know how it was constructed and how it worked and all of that.
Waiting to get into tram #1
Each tram holds 5 people so we had 1 for all of us. It was snug in there!
An attempt at a photo of the shaft on the way up
Once at the top, the tram stops and you get out and walk up some steps to get to the very top of the Arch. There are small windows to look out (maybe 18 inches wide by 6 inches high?) and these pictures were taken through those windows.
While at the top, Blake looked like this and refused to look out the windows.
He may have had some validity to his fear since we were swaying back and forth and the employees announced that we needed to hurry back down due to a TORNADO WARNING.
O.M.G. It was a freaky few minutes as we swayed and swayed and the workers were telling people to hurry to get back. We finally got back down and decided to hang out in the base of the Arch because it's underground and safe.
The tornado warnings passed but there was still a torrential downpour of rain. We debated what to do because we wanted to get to our next stop and knew if we could just get a cab, it would be more fun to be at our next stop while it rained outside rather than hanging out doing nothing. We decided to brave it and we went out in the rain.
We intended to just find a cab as close as possible but what happened was we got so drenched, we had to head back to the hotel (wringing ourselves out before entering of course).
Payton and I in the elevator after being drenched. Hard to tell but we were soaked and dripping and our jeans were so heavy from carrying so much water. (btw, she has on multiple layers of shirts or else I wouldn't be able to post the pic.)
After changing clothes and shoes and drying our hair, we head out to look for a cab except this time we make sure it pulls under the awning at the hotel so we limit the amount of rain that can soak us.
We eventually get to our next destination - the City Museum. We've been to St. Louis a few times and done the typical kid activities like the zoo (predictably, I hated it especially because it is so huge but most people love it), Science City, etc. but this time we were trying out this other museum which was located downtown.
I thought this museum was AWESOME. Crawly spaces, slides that were 7 stories tall, interesting little nooks. You could just get lost in the place exploring all the different areas. My mom said somebody on drugs obviously created the place. I say I'd like some of those drugs thankyouverymuch.
Some pics of our afternoon at the City Museum.
Random organ player dude who played in the shaft where you climb the 7 story slide so the whole slide area could hear this music. It felt like we were in a Tim Burton movie in this area.
We climbed the 7 stories of stairs to go down the slide. The light at the bottom is organ player dude.
Blake and I sitting at the top of the slide waiting for our turn. My hair - still soaked!
The slide was so long and windy that it made me dizzy. Andy took a second to walk when he got to the bottom of the slide due to dizziness. Blake looks thrilled as usual but he did like it.
Then it was off to explore some new areas...
Swinging from a rope in the Skateless Park area
A ride on the train
Snacktime
Blake played a real song on the piano. Makes me sad he won't practice and won't get to continue piano lessons right now. :(
Payton was brave and crawled through the tunnel arch thing with Blake. I was afraid she'd get stuck in some of the windy parts.
Next stop was an artsy area where the kids weren't interested in making their own ornaments. They wanted to play with BLOCKS. At home, they ignore blocks. At the museum we paid to get into, they LOVE them. Figures.
Found another pressed penny machine!
It's hard to see in this picture but those twisty/windy/slinky looking things have my children in them climbing from the third floor to the second floor. I really thought they'd get stuck but they didn't.
The City Museum was crazy fun and I'm glad we did it.
After that, we headed back to the hotel for some downtime and then that night, the 3 adults walked to The Landing which was a few blocks away and consists of various restaurants and bars and clubs. We were trying to find a place that Andy remembered liking and when we discovered it was closed, we instead went to a dueling piano bar which is usually popular with all ages. We had fun there and then headed to a restaurant because we were starving. We ordered great food including some pulled pork nachos that I'm still craving. Yum.
Have I mentioned that I was sure I'd be able to use my wifi camera in many places and never once found a place that had open wifi to use? I had really hoped it would be available in this area and never found anything. Instead, I entertained myself electronically by texting my daughter a series of old-style messages such as:
Dearest Payton, I hope this evening finds you well. We are enjoying our evening out tonight without children and hope that your brother will be slumbering soon. Sincerely, mother.
