Way back in May, yes I’m going back that far, we went on an awesome cruise on the Oasis of the Seas courtesy of my inlaws. You can get refreshed on the trip down there from this earlier post. We went on the cruise with Jordi’s parents, his sister and her boyfriend, his brother and his cousin. We all had adjoining rooms with balconies on the inside of the ship, great views for people watching and watching the water show on the back of the ship. (Note to people with small children, do not book room 8727 or those in the vicinity, the show in the back is LOUD and  they rehearse right during nap time and do the show at bedtime and later).

The balcony dividers even came down so we could visit each other easily! Great for Josie to go see who was awake at our usual early hour!

The ship is amazing. We enjoyed the donut shop open all hours.

But Josie’s favorite part was the carousel. The first carousel at sea! We went on this thing at least 4 times a day, sometimes more. Generally me as Jordi gets motion sick from it. Staff members commented that parents frequently would bring the kids down there at night to get them to calm down for bed.

She’d go on it even when she’s exhausted and unwilling to relent to sleep.

We had fancy dinners every night. The girls did great, Celia was just starting solids at that point at almost 7 months old. The chef got Celia’s dinner order right the first time by about the 3rd night, we had to have a few restarts the first few nights. About half the time we ate alone, the other half we ate with everyone. But as is the case with small children, we’re on a much earlier schedule than everyone else. Josie enjoyed getting to eat ice cream most every night and sometimes during the day. She tried all sorts of foods, we kept her off the kids menu and just ordered from the regular one and she tried the different kinds of indian foods and of course her favorite pasta dishes.

Other than eating and riding the carousel we spent a lot of our time at the pool. They had a whirl pool that was not like a bubble jet sauna, but an actual spinning pool that shoved you in a circle. Josie wasn’t quite tall enough for it alone but she had fun clinging to the adults taking her in. She also splashed around in all the big pools and enjoyed spraying people with the water guns. Celia liked her little baby section, splashing in the water, walking under the sprays and seeing the other babies.

Once in a while we’d even get there at the same time as everyone else!

They even had kid sized lounge chairs to relax on!

Josie was extremely lucky on this trip, even picking the winning ducky from a carnival game they had set up. People told us to bring to her the casino. We declined!

Celia was one of the youngest babies on board because they only let babies onboard at a minimum of six months old. So everywhere we went we got ‘oh what a cute baby!’ Josie learned to grab back some of the attention by babywearing her doll Clara, especially when they had on matching dresses.  Here’s the dress in this photo, but somehow I didn’t get one of her with Clara.

This post is majorly long but we had a whole week of vacation and the ship is huge! Josie spent one whole hour in the childcare and upon being picked up cried and told me never to take her there again. The staff said she was happy while she was there, and I believe she was, but we had fun playing together so that worked out fine. Josie also got to try out ice skating, she enjoyed it, but she didn’t manage on her own feet too much yet. Hopefully we’ll get her out sometime soon and she’ll start to get a feel for it.

She also rode her first powerwheels one day when it was a million degrees in the middle of the day. They said they’d have to move that event to the early evening so the kids don’t fry on the basketball court!

Jordi even got to go scuba diving. I haven’t been since I got pregnant with Josie, we’ll have to find a way to make it work someday again for me to go! I got a pedicure which was nice, but then I also got a sales-pitch from the manicurist for undereye creme. Nothing’s helping those bags but some sleep, lady!

Speaking of sleep, the cruise happened during the good old days when Celia would just pass out as you walked around and stay that way. We enjoyed many a nap walking the ship and exploring or just laying down with her. We caught up on a bit of sleep as there’s really no choice but to sleep once the kids do in the tiny rooms. Josie only fell out of bed once  before we figured out how to set things up safer!

We got once nice formal portrait of the whole family together after dinner one night. I think it’s nice. My kids make me laugh. You should click on the picture to see the expressions better, Josie was not pleased. Celia was just confused, I think.

One new thing I planned for this trip was a travel journal for Josie. I want to keep doing this for any fun traveling we do as a family. I made a book with space for a picture and lines for writing, one page per day approximately. Each day we’d try to sit down and write something about the trip and draw a picture. Either of the ship or something else we saw. At this point it was all just scribbles and funny sentences. It contains such gems as “I love our cruise. I like drawing on my travel notebook. I like the merry go round. I have fun going up and down. I like the music.” I look forward to seeing the progress later on!

We got off the ship a few times too, mostly just walking around before we got hot and tired carrying both kids and went back. In St. Thomas we went to a local beach and enjoyed some sand play, otherwise we kept things low key with low expectations and we had a good time.

We have a gazillion pictures and we had a great time eating, swimming, showering, going on the merry go round and doing it all again the next day. I don’t think my kids have ever been so clean as when I got to shower them every night for dinner to get the sunblock and sand off. Thanks!

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 5th, 2011 at 8:01 pm by Jen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.