Vacation on Water

Now that I'm more awake and refreshed, I can continue chronicling our trip. Last night, I was beginning to get so tired that my eyelids felt like they were made of lead. That's probably why--as I began to write about the visit to Animal Kingdom--I started just tossing in pictures and saying, "Yeah, yeah, blah, blah blah... here's some pictures. Figure out for yourself what we did." Okay, well that's what I felt like doing anyway. I'm better now. It's daytime. I can do this.

We left Orlando on Monday morning (Sept. 1st) and headed to the Port of Miami. We'd checked Norwegian's website several times over the weekend to see what was to become of our cruise, since the latest hurricane (Hannah) was currently bearing down on our destination of the Bahamas. They finally posted a notice that said we would not be going to the Bahamas at all. Instead, the ship would be going to the Western Caribbean and stopping at Cozumel, Mexico and then Key West, FL on the return. Yay!! We still were going on a cruise! Aww, man... we've already been to Cozumel and Key West before. So much for seeing new and different places.

But, we just had to get over that part. It was fine. We were just glad to be going somewhere, and fun can be had no matter the circumstances. When we arrived at the port, the ship was docked and everyone was boarding. You must go inside the port authority building, provide all your necessary documentation, walk through the metal detectors, and jump through hoops before you pop out the other side to board the ship. (A note to the curious: You don't have to have a passport. I have had people ask me about this. All that's required is a Birth Certificate and a photo I.D. for adults and just a Birth Certificate for children. This is because we were traveling to and from Mexico on a cruise ship from one American port.)

Hopers had a really hard time understanding the whole "big boat" thing at first. We pointed the ship out from a distance and told her, "There's the big boat! We're going on the big boat!" But, once we had made our way through the port authority building and walked down what looked like a hallway to get on the ship, it didn't ever connect with her that we were actually on the cruise ship! We even took her out to the railing and showed her the vast expanse of ocean around us when no land was in sight. It was two days into the trip before I think she understood. Either that, or she just gave up asking when we were going to get on the big boat.

First things first. We immediately got inside and ate lunch. This would be the first of many, many, many meals on the ship, since you can eat any time you want, as much as you want, in multiple locations. This includes several buffet restaurants, general seating restaurants, themed restaurants, and free room service. Yes, I said room service. We ordered cheesecake to our room every night. Seth really enjoyed being able to have his dreamworld of 16 meals a day. The kids really enjoyed being able have chicken nuggets and apple sauce while sitting on the bed watching a cartoon. We figured out that it was better to feed them, send them off to the Kids Crew place, and then go have a nice, pleasant dinner date to ourselves. The girls loved going to their "class" as they called it. You check them in their respective rooms for scheduled activities like story time, making a sand art picture, games, etc. The caretakers all had silly names like "Mashed Potato" and "Doughnut" that the kids had to call them. Kids can go for free (when the ship is not at a port) from early in the morning to 10:30 at night. Any other time, there is a small hourly fee for "babysitting." On the last night, they had a pajama party. All the kids show up in pj's and bring pillows. Hopers brought her blanket and teddy. Noodle's group had a pillow fight. Both of the girls came back with new t-shirts they had decorated themselves. It was very convenient for the times when Hopers needed a nap. Noodle wasn't at all interested in sitting around in a dark, quiet room for two hours waiting for her sister to wake up. So during this time, I would relax on the bed and read my book (yes!!), and Seth would go workout in the gym, and Noodle would go play with her new friends in the Kids Crew.

At bedtime, we would all return to our cozy little room. We had a large bed for Seth and me that was two twins pushed together, Noodle had a bed that pulled down out of the wall above us. It had a ladder that she could climb to get in and out of bed, and the room steward worked very hard to keep it looking neat every day. He would come to the room when we were out in the morning, tidy everything up, make the beds, and then fold Noodle's bed up against the wall. But we would return not long after. Noodle would pull the bed back down and jump around on it--since it was more like a soft jungle gym than anything else--ruining the hard work the steward had just done. In the evening, our bed would be made again, with the sheets turned down and mints on it. One night, he made a towel creature with Hoper's sunglasses and arranged the girls' teddy bears with it.

Hoper's bed was another interesting item. There was a small, pink couch that was supposed to pull out into a bed, but we didn't want to fill up what little floorspace was left in the room. So instead, we just turned the couch around against the wall and, voila! A perfect Hopers-sized bed. She loved it. Here's a picture of her all snuggled in the giant duvet that came from another bed.

Elsewhere on the ship, we spent a lot of time at the pool. There were two main pools in the top center of the ship where most people gathered. We swam there once, but mostly preferred the kid's pool and hot tub at the front of the ship. It was the perfect depth that we didn't have to worry about putting floaties on Hopers, but also fun enough for Noodle to enjoy. Connected to it was a hot tub just for kids and parents, so there were no dirty looks from grownups looking for alone time. The funny thing about this pool area was that it was at the front, meaning, the rocking motion of the ship is more pronounced. This didn't bother us, but at times, the rocking was so great that it sloshed the kids back and forth in the pool. I made a video of Noodle trying to play while this was going on. She thought it was hilarious.

Our first excursion off the ship was to Cozumel, Mexico. Since we had done the Mayan ruins thing last time, we decided to just go to the beach. This involved standing in line to get off the cruise, riding on a ferry to get to the docks, and taking a $15 taxi to get to a beach all while fending off hundreds of Mexicans trying to sell us jewelry, alchohol and scuba trips. (There was even a man with monkey. I reached out toward the monkey and it climbed up on top of my head before I could blink!) The beach was decent, but certainly no St. George Island (my standard for comparing all beaches). We played in the water and hunted

for interesting pieces of coral for about 30 minutes before it started to rain. And oh boy did it rain. There were no signs of sunshine coming anytime soon, so we decided to pack up and head back. Another $15 taxi ride--only this time in a flooding rain. The streets immediately filled with murky brown water for lack of drainage. Our taxi passed a tourist in a VW Bug with the window down and, well, you can guess what happened. The wall of water that splashed into the woman's face left her with a wet, shocked stare. Oops? I don't think our taxi driver even noticed. Hopers fell asleep during all this. (She spent much of our vacation completely exhausted.)

Our second stop was on the fourth day of the cruise. We docked at Key West. Having lived in South Florida, we'd all been there before (except Hopers) and weren't really excited about getting out again. However, it turned out to be a much better experience than Cozumel. One thing that stood out was that no one was attacking you to spend money. I like this a lot about America. We like our space. You stand over there and I'll stand over here, and if I want to buy something I'll let you know. Okay? Good. Another thing was the general cleanliness and neatness. Cozumel has shiny new buildings sandwiched in between crumbling hovels. Key West has cute brightly painted homes and buildings that look old, yet cared for. The beach we found was better (in my humble opinion) simply because it didn't have shanties serving alcohol and trinkets, and calling out for people to come play bingo every five minutes. We had a nice time. The girls enjoyed picking through the coral and shells. In fact, the sand wasn't really what I'd call sand. It was chunks of coral. Quite rough on the feet. I spent most of my time floating in the water just so I didn't have to stand on the "sand."