This has been one of the most fun weeks of all! For Christmas we decided to do another trip rather than presents so this year we decided to take the kids on a cruise! We booked a 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise on the Royal Princess. This whole week has been a blast and the kids have been begging to go back ever since.
To get to the cruise was a trip in itself. We left our house on January 16th and drove to St. George. This trip was not just for us. Grandma and Grandpa Morwood were also going with us as well as Clint, Haley, Jacee and Stuart. We couldn't wait to spend a week with everyone. We spent the night in St. George. Then, the next morning, we drove the rest of the way to Los Angeles, CA taking Grandma with us. The rest of the crew would be coming down later in the afternoon. The drive to California was a little long. We were very anxious to get to our cruise. On the way the kids looked for interesting sites and cool cars. Colby was excited to see a McLaren! It sped past our van like we were sitting still.
Finally, we arrived at our hotel. We still had a bit of daylight left so we wanted to go see some sites. Russell and I thought the kids would like to see the Hollywood sign so we started driving there. Little did we know that anywhere you go in California is bumper to bumper traffic especially at 5:00. Getting to the Hollywood Walk of Fame took us over an hour of stop and go traffic and by the time we got there, it was dark and we didn't feel it was safe to get out of the car. We pointed the Hollywood stars out to the kids from the car windows though. We never did find the Hollywood sign because we were tired of driving. So this was kind of a pointless trip to Hollywood... We finally decided to just head back to the hotel, stopping at Wendy's on the way.
Back at the hotel, the kids were finally happy to get out of the car and let some energy out. We had a lot of fun taking funny pictures.
Charlotte's Owen owl managed to photo-bomb every picture we took. What a crazy owl. After a good night's sleep, we were up early ready to get on the cruise ship.
Before heading to the port, we had to take a fun group picture. We were all happy and ready to embark!
Here we are at the port. Look at that huge ship behind us. Yep, that is our ship. It was like a mini city on the water!
Before we could get on the ship, we had to wait for our group number to be called. This is also where we went though Customs, checked our luggage, showed our passports, and were issued our Princess Medallions. These Medallions were our everything on the cruise. Our room keys, credit cards, passports for the ports, our IDs, and even our locator beacons. Each of us got one which I am so glad about as you will find out later.
Finally it was our turn to get on the ship. This thing was huge!
The first thing we did when we got on the ship was head to the buffet!! We had skipped breakfast because we knew we would be boarding soon. Because of this we were all hungry and our room was not ready so it was really the only place we could go. The first place we hit up was the Pizza Parlor and the Grille. This was our first taste of the amazing food this cruise ship offered. Our favorite was the french fries we got at the Grille and the soft serve ice cream. We ate this everyday.
At 3:00 or so, we were able to go to our rooms. As we wound our way around the ship trying to find our room, we passed though many staircases and many large information screens that looked like TV's. When we finally got to our floor, we turned down the hall and headed to our room. As we entered our room, we got a phone call. We were a little confused but thought it was just one of our family members calling our room. When we answered the phone, though, it was a ship crew member calling us to tell us that they had found Logan. We looked around and realized for the first time that Logan was not with us! I was immediately concerned but the lady told us to just stay in our room and she would bring Logan to us. Come to find out, Logan had gotten distracted by one of the large screens and while he was watching the little fish swim around on the screen, we had all turned the corner to our rooms and left him there. He finally looked around and realized he was lost. Someone asked him if he was lost and took him to the crew member. The crew scanned his medallion and knew right where to take him to find us. We were all so relieved to know that he was fine and we also couldn't believe that we had only been on the ship less than a few hours and we had already lost someone. This is why I am so glad for the locator beacon on these Medallions! From then on we kept a double eye on all of the kids and made sure that they always stayed with one of us.
The funny thing is that a few days before our cruise, I had a really bad dream that we lost all of the kids on the cruise ship and we couldn't find any of them. I even dreamed that Charlotte was left on the dock as we were leaving. In my dream, I was running around frantically trying to find everyone and Russell was just a the buffet eating! I woke up wondering if a cruise was such a good idea. And then we lose Logan for real as soon as we get on the ship. I really hoped this was not a bad omen but thankfully everything turned out just fine and we didn't lose anyone else the rest of the trip.
At 4:00 pm, we set sail from Los Angeles and headed out into the Pacific Ocean. We were on the top deck of the ship for the sail-away celebration and so we could wave goodbye to all of the people on the dock.
The views of and from our cruise ship were amazing. We could already tell that this was going to be a fun trip. One surprise we did get was we found out that Lacie and Klint were coming on the cruise with us too. We didn't know this until we saw them on the boat.
As we watched the ship sail away, we were amazed at the power of the little tug boat that pulled us out to sea. We were also in awe of the way this huge ship was maneuvered through the little channel and dock out to the open water. The Coast Guard boats also escorted us out to sea.
Finally we were out in the open water and on our way to Mexico. We were already loving the warmer weather and were so excited to finally see the sun shine and feel the warm ocean breezes. One of the most amazing things about the ocean is the sunsets. We had to take a picture of the beautiful sunset on our first day on the cruise.
We kind of pirated these pictures from the cruise gallery but oh well... Here is our whole crew embarking on our cruise together!
For dinner we loved going to the formal dining room. Thankfully this day was a casual day because it was our first night.
The kids were astonished by the food at the formal dining. They had never seen anything so fancy nor tasted anything so good! Our waiter and waitress were awesome. They loved all of the kids and treated them just like adults. They took their orders and made sure everything was just perfect. They especially loved Charlotte and brought her Mac & Cheese and apple juice every night just like she ordered. We loved all of the food especially the desserts!
After dinner, we hit up the night life. Logan and Charlotte wanted to play in the kids playroom so we took them up to their playroom for some fun activities. While they were there, Colby went swimming with Russell. Emily wanted to go with the adults and play Musical BINGO. This was really fun for her because she was able to win one of the rounds!
For her prize she was given a bottle of champagne!! Then when they realized she was a minor, they also gave her a Princess water bottle and told her to give the champagne to her parents. I just laughed and thought I didn't want it either. Well we took it anyway and this was our souvenir for the first day. Emily was really excited to win!
The next day was our first full day on the ship. This was an At Sea day so we just got to relax and explore the ship. At breakfast, we ate on the back of the ship and watched us just sail away from everything.
All the kids wanted to do all day was swim so that's what we did.
The water in the pool was a little too cold for me but Russell and the kids didn't seem to care. That is until they got out of the water and into the wind. They swam all afternoon and tried out their new snorkels.
Another thing we did was participate in our daily ritual of getting ice cream. Every time we felt the urge, we said "Its time for a boat snack!" Then we got a cookie or ice cream or both. I think our lunch everyday was a bowl of french fries and an ice cream cone. It was perfect!
On the deck, there was this glass sky walk. It felt like you were walking right in the air with nothing below you but the raging ocean. It was really quite nerve-racking! Charlotte would not even walk on it unless she was walking on the edge and not the glass part. It was a cool view though.
That day, Emily and I also attended a few presentations and started our cruise charm bracelet. Each day there will be a few presentations to go to and we will collect charms at each one. We can't wait to build our charm bracelets.
That night was our formal night at the dining. Before heading to dinner we decided to get a few professional pictures of us in our formal attire.
I think they turned out great.
The dinner that night was another crowd pleaser. I wish I could remember what we ate but everything was sensational!
The kids especially loved the desserts. And it was more ice cream, our favorite!!
That night we went to the Production Show: Encore. This was in the Princess Theater and featured the Royal Princess Dancers and Singers.
This was a really good show and we were all amazed by the talent on the stage. The kids did great until the singers started singing in some foreign language and then they got bored. But is was still entertaining.
Well we were all really tired after all of the fun of the day so we decided to head to bed for the night. Russell and I also needed to get things ready for our first port day, Cabo San Lucas!
There we are! Just Cruisin'!
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