Caribbean Cruise...Part 1

The end of Sept-beginning of October we were lucky enough to go on a family cruise. Brian, Kylie and I went, along with my parents. It really was SO MUCH FUN and I miss it lots. :) We left from Miami and then sailed to Cayman Islands, Isla Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel. Then of course ended back up in Miami. We were gone just over a week, it was a 7-night cruise. We flew to Miami first and had to stay there a night and wait to get on our boat the next day. Kylie is great on planes, she loves flying actually. She loves the window seat especially. :) I bought her this little toy she is playing with right before we left and it turned out to be a great investment. :) She played with this for a LONG time!!! In Miami....we had a horrible hotel experience, so we were even MORE EXCITED to get on that boat the next day! :) And while we were waiting in lines to get checked-in and ready to get on board the boat, they had this FABULOUS play area for Kylie to play in. So it was a blast from the beginning!
It was my parents first cruise...so the second we got on the boat I snapped a picture of them...
After we got on the boat, we had a little bit before we could go in our cabin. So what did we do first thing?! Ate of course! We ate SO MUCH food this trip. They have delicious food 24/7 so you have to take advantage of it, right?! :) After we ate some lunch, we went to our cabins to check things out, wait for our luggage to get there, unpack, hang out on our balcony and check out the ocean, and wait for us to sail out. Before we did sail out though, we had to go to our safety "training" they make you go to. It was SO HOT and miserable while we had to wear our life jackets. We were all packed on to one of the decks. And seriously...they PACK you in there like sardines...and you are on this crevice of the deck so there is no breeze and you have this big life jacket on and it was just not fun. Worth it...but not fun. :) (I did get a picture with my cell phone camera so I'll have to update that picture later.)

When we were in our cabin....Kylie LOVED hanging out on our balcony from the moment she saw it. That was where she preferred to be.She would just sit there and stare out at the ocean. Her mommy loved it too. :)
Hanging out on the balcony made us all want to get in the water. And although I was DYING to just dive off my balcony in to the ocean, I was pretty sure that wasn't the safest thing to do. :) So we opted for the pool instead. :) But after we went to our safety training and got unpacked and had a few hours to digest our lunch, we headed to our dinner. On a cruise you can either choose early seating for dinner (at 6:00pm) or late seating (8:00pm). Since we have Kylie...we went to early dinner. And turns out...smart move. Because the first night when we went to our table (you have the same table/waiters every night) we saw this view...Our table had a FABULOUS view...and we got to see the day turn to night each day. It was FABULOUS and amazing and I loved it! These were some of the fabulous things we got to eat...

Shrimp cocktail (Brian had this every night...our waiter even learned he liked to have two of these, so he started just automatically bringing him two of these each night)

LOBSTER! (My fave night...I LOVE lobster...it's one of my fave things!)

And this AMAZING Chocolate Melting Cake. May not look like much, but WOW! It was SO GOOD! :)

This was our table number.

Ky and Daddy hanging out during dinner.

When we get back from dinner to get refreshed before going to the shows or walking around the decks of the ship or whatever we did, we were greeted in our rooms by an animal like this... Our steward would make us one of these each night, and it was a different animal each night. Sometimes there were even cookies. We loved coming in to a clean room after dinner to get ready for our night. :)

Then we would usually go to the night's show (they had a HILARIOUS juggler one night, dancers another, a magician, comedians, etc, etc.). They had great shows.

Then we would often come back, put Kylie to bed, and hang on the balcony. It was great because our cabin was right next to my parents, so we opened up the door that separated our balcony's and just wandered to each other's rooms. Kylie would disappear from our cabin quite often to head to Grandma's and Grandpa's. She LOVED being able to be so close and go see them whenever.

I LOVED hanging out on the balcony and reading a book or just stare out at the ocean and contemplate how small we are in the scheme of things. (Seriously...staring out at the vast ocean makes you really think about all sorts of things....I LOVED it!!!)

Here is just the first portion of our cruise adventure. More will be coming soon! :)