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| Wildlife in St. Thomas |
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| Kids enjoyed getting order multiple dinners |
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| Ice skating show |
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| One of the rooms, we had two rooms for our family |
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| Our room attendant made fun towel animals every day |
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| All dressed up |
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| An acrobatic show |
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| Snorkeling excursion on St. Thomas |
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| Back on St. Maarten where we honeymooned |
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| Beach restaurant on St. Maarten |
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| Trying coconut water |
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| Rented waverunners on St. Maarten |
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| Our boat |
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| Isaac |
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| Unfortunately the person taking our picture took a blurry pic |
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| Central Park on the ship |
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| Santa stopped by on Christmas Day |
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| She loves rock climbing |
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| Stephen trying it out |
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| It was cold the day we pulled out from Miami |
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| Mexican restaurant near our Miami hotel |
We took our first family cruise and for a little while it looked like we might not make it. We had some sick kids right before the trip. And then a big snowstorm was on the horizon. We were scheduled to fly out of O'Hare. Because of the impending snowstorm, our travel agent recommended we rent a vehicle and just start driving to Miami because we probably wouldn't get out. I looked around for vehicles and no one had vehicles large enough for our family. And Miami is a VERY long drive. We kept watching the weather and decided O'Hare may not get hit as bad as MI. So we drove to Chicago a day early so we wouldn't have to be driving around the lake in a storm. The park/stay/ride hotel we found near the airport was a dive. Holy cow. Staff were super friendly and helpful, but oof. The younger kids desperately wanted to swim in the questionable looking pool, so we went in and I would regret that later. It was frigid in Chicago and the hotel's front doors wouldn't close because of the cold so the lobby where breakfast was served was freezing. At this point of the trip we were all questioning whether this was worth it. Thankfully our flight made it out of O'Hare. We heard many stories of people who did not make it out of O'Hare or GR that day.
We spent a night at a hotel in Miami and while it was warmer than MI, it was quite cold there. While in Miami I realized I had pink eye (hello questionable pool area in Chicago hotel). Nate says I am the most pink eye prone person when we travel, he may not be wrong. Anyway, I proceeded to uber around Miami- urgent care for diagnoses, to a pharmacy but it couldn't get it done before we shipped out, to a different pharmacy, back to the hotel successfully with medicine. Once we were on the ship, some of the kids went swimming. We could tell which passengers were from northern climates and were not fazed by the coldness. The first night on the ship was wavy and a couple of us struggled with motion sickness, which led us to wonder if taking motion sick prone family members on a cruise was a good idea? However, the next day was less wavy and everyone felt better. Some family members kept wrist bands and behind the ear patches on for the whole week which helped. We had two interior rooms. Nate, Caleb and Isaac shared a room and Stacy, Julia, Stephen and Lexi shared a room. The older boys have different wake/sleep hours so we tried to split the rooms so everyone would enjoy the vacation.
The Symphony of the Seas is a massive ship with many shows and activities. Some of the highlights of the week
-Hairspray, ice skating show, acrobatic show, the pools/slides, wave surfing pool, younger kids did the kid programming a couple times.
The food on the ship was fantastic. I very much enjoyed not having to think about food for our family for a week. We liked the buffets and of course the soft serve ice cream by the pools. The sit down and dress up dinners were not something the kids were excited about at the beginning. The gnashing of teeth about the nice clothes and dress up shoes they needed to pack! They will never admit to being ok with dressing up every night, but everyone loved the dinners. It was fun to be able to try a couple appetizers, dinners or desserts.
We had 3 stops during our cruise. The first was St. Maarten. We had not been here since our honeymoon so it was fun to plan a day there. I braved not using a cruise excursion and did my own research. We grabbed a taxi from the port and went to Orient Beach. We warned the kids that one section of the beach is clothing optional, which we would try to avoid, but to be prepared and not stare if people walked past with no clothing. I think we only saw a couple things we wished we could unsee. Orient Beach is beautiful and we rented some beach chairs. We rented two waverunners and Nate, Caleb, Isaac, Stephen and Lexi took turns going out. The waverunners would not go beyond a certain speed, so that was a little disappointing but still fun. Our family enjoyed swimming in the ocean. Saltwater is a thing and we were reminded we are fresh water people. We found a more reasonably priced beach restaurant (thanks to a nearby person who heard us heatedly discussing how much money we wanted to spend on lunch) and took a taxi ride back at the end of the afternoon- a great day at St. Maarten!
Our second stop was St. Thomas. We booked a cruise excursion for this stop. We decided on a snorkeling trip. Unfortunately it was too wavy to go to the usual place, but the boat crew took us to a more sheltered bay. I was really proud of our whole family for trying snorkeling. It is a little anxiety producing to put your face in the water and only breath thru a tube while wrestling with a life jacket. We saw some sea turtles while snorkeling- very cool.
The last stop was CocoCay Island, which is owned by the cruise line. We were able to snag a couple beach chairs and apparently I have some charm as the swim mat attendant gave us a couple without having to pay for them. The food at CocoCay was also very good. We walked to the interior of the island to see the pools, but mostly stuck to the beach.
We have fun memories from the cruise and are glad we got to take this trip with our kids who are growing up fast.
