# Escape From Home Life to 4th of July on the High Seas - A July 2019 Cruise Trip Report (Completed 6/21)



## cstorm65

Welcome back everyone to another one of our trip reports! This will be our first trip report on something other than a Disney Vacation as we sailed with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line on a 7 Day sailing out of Galveston over the 4th of July. You can also read about our trips “Escape from Craziness Part I” and “Escape from Craziness Part II” where we had Disney Annual Passes, but we were taking a summer off of Disney World. We are going back this coming summer with Annual Passes again, so that will be coming down the road! We were very excited about our first cruise with Royal Caribbean. We have done a 4 night on the Disney Dream before DS3 was born and LOVED it! So we knew we enjoyed the cruise experience, but the convenience for us to go out of Galveston, plus the cost differential caused us to go with Royal Caribbean. We will cruise with Disney again, but Royal was a better fit for us at this point.

So, I’ll quit rambling and get started by introducing everyone!

*Introductions*

I will start by introducing myself, I’m Jon.






I am a high school football coach and athletic director and love the job I get to do every day. I’ve been teaching and coaching at the same school for ten years and just finished my third season as the head football coach. Anyway, I honestly think I have the best job in the world. Being able to make a positive impact on kids every day is something I love doing. It certainly has its challenges, but overall I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.

Favorite Character: Goofy
Favorite Ride: Flight of Passage
Favorite Show: Festival of the Lion King
Favorite Movie: The Lion King
Favorite Restaurant: ‘Ohana

Now for my best friend and wife, April.






April loves our family vacations as well as almost any time we get to spend together. We have developed a love for Disney and vacationing together and it is something she cherishes. She is a school psychologist by day and an incredible mother and wife by night. She works in the same school district I do and so we get to see each other every day, which really is nice. She loves her job working with kids as well and she is awesome at it.

Favorite Character: Ariel
Favorite Ride: Rock 'n Roller Coaster
Favorite Show: Festival of the Lion King
Favorite Movie: Little Mermaid
Favorite Restaurant:  Whispering Canyon Cafe

Next up is DS7.






It seems like just yesterday that he was born and came into our family, but I’m sure all of you with kids think it goes fast too! He loves to run, play, hit things, throw balls, and many other things most little boys love to do. In addition to all of these things DS loves monster trucks, watching football on TV and playing outside. He also still enjoys the Disney Junior shows, although he might not tell you that since he thinks he’s a little older than he actually is! Anyway, he is an awesome kid and is now a great big brother.

And finally, the fireball of the family, DS3.






DS3 is an incredibly sweet little boy who LOVES his mommy, but man is he awnry and opinionated, not to mention the loudest human being for his little size that I’ve ever seen. DS7 was always kind of a daddy’s boy, but DS3 has certainly taken the other side. He just loves to sit and play with his mom. He loves watching Mickey Mouse on TV as well as Masha and Bear. He has a stuffed animal Mickey Mouse and an Olaf and those two sleep with him in his bed. They both have to be in exactly the correct place on the bed every night or he will not go to sleep! He’s a tad OCD about his bedtime routine! Anyways, this will be his first cruise and I don’t think he understands at all what is happening, but he will before long!

Well, that’s who we are. Stand by for Day 1.

*Up Next: Day 1 Part 1*​


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## cstorm65

*TABLE OF CONTENTS*

Day 1 - Part 1 - 8 Hours, 5 People, 1 Car

Day 2 - Part 1 - The Best Gas Station Ever
Day 2 - Part 2 - "Dad, Can I Have More Ice Cream?"
Day 2 - Part 3 - Sail Away
Day 2 - Part 4 - What a Sunset!

Day 3 - Part 1 - "I See Dolphins!"
Day 3 - Part 2 - Some Cruising Classics...Trivia & Shuffleboard
Day 3 - Part 3 - Ice Cream, Ice Cream, & More Ice Cream

Day 4 - Part 1 - How Awesome Was That Breakfast?
Day 4 - Part 2 - Souvenirs for All
Day 4 - Part 3 - The Best Pool Day
Day 4 - Part 4 - Umm...Can I Have Another One of Those?

Day 5 - Part 1 - Thank Goodness We Did a Ship Excursion
Day 5 - Part 2 - Can We At Least Get a Picture Honey?
Day 5 - Part 3 - Fun with Starfish
Day 5 - Part 4 - That Was a Good Burger
Day 5 - Part 5 - That's A Lot of Balloons

Day 6 - Part 1 - This is a Nice Port
Day 6 - Part 2 - There's Nobody Here
Day 6 - Part 3 - "I Want a Soccer Ball Too"
Day 6 - Part 4 - This is the Best Cheese Ever
Day 6 - Part 5 - Sail Away
Day 6 - Part 6 - Holy Carbonara

Day 7 - Part 1 - Why Are You Spending Money on That?
Day 7 - Part 2 - Best Buffet Item All Week
Day 7 - Part 3 - "Dad, I Just Want to Play Basketball"
Day 7 - Part 4 - Pictures Around the Ship
Day 7 - Part 5 - Ping Pong Battle

Day 8 - Part 1 - Sunrise on the Ocean
Day 8 - Part 2 - Is Mini Golf Finally Open?
Day 8 - Part 3 - Do We Get to Make Guacamole at the Guacamole Class?
Day 8 - Part 4 - A Final Trip to the Dining Room
Day 8 - Part 5 - Does the Watch Sale Ever End?

Day 9 - Part 1 - Goodbye to the Liberty
Day 9 - Part 2 - Wow, We're Tired!

Day 10 - Part 1 - We Get Our Theme Park Fix
Day 10 - Part 2 - "Dad, This Looks Like Tomorrowland!"
Day 10 - Part 3 - The Wettest Ride in the Wilderness​


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## cstorm65

*Past Trips and Trip Reports

Current Trip Report*
June 2018 - Escape from Craziness to Fireworks, Food, and a DVC Tour
July 2019 - Escape from Home Life to July 4th on the High Seas

*Past Trip Reports*
December 2017 - Escape from School to Crazy Christmas Crowds
July 2017 - Escape From Craziness to Pandora, Po Boys, and Oppressive Heat
June/July 2014 - Escape from Real Life to Paradise: A New Trip with New Memories
June 2013 - Escape from Tornado Alley to Food, Tropical Storms, Mickey and More Food
June 2011 - "Can Two Thrill Ride Junkies Love Disneyworld?"

*Past Pre-Trip Reports*
June 2018 - Let's Put These AP's to Use! A June 2018 PTR
July 2017 - Our First Trip As a Family of Four!
June 2015 - We’re Going For the Record...A Record Number of Resort Changes!

*Past Trips*
June 2018 - WDW Dolphin/Yacht Club Resort (Trip Report)
December 2017 - All Star Sports (Trip Report)
July 2017 - Pop Century/Port Orleans French Quarter (Trip Report)
June 2015 - Pop Century/Coronado Springs Resort
June/July 2014 - Disney Dream Cruise/Wilderness Lodge (Trip Report)
June 2013 - Pop Century/Universal Royal Pacific/Boardwalk Villas (Trip Report)
June 2011 - Caribbean Beach Resort (Trip Report)
July 2008 - Offsite

*Upcoming Trips*
July 2020 - TBA "First Trip as DVC Owners"


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## DLo

Hopping over from your current WDW TR . Looking forward to reading about your cruise adventures.


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## StarWarsMomofGirls!

I am here!


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## cstorm65

DLo said:


> Hopping over from your current WDW TR . Looking forward to reading about your cruise adventures.





StarWarsMomofGirls! said:


> I am here!



Thanks for coming over y'all. I'm hoping to get an update up here tomorrow.


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## cstorm65

*Day 1 - 8 Hours, 5 People, 1 Car*

It was finally time for our trip and it seemed like this one took a long time to arrive, but we’d finally made it. The only thing we were going to pack five people into our car and drive eight hours to Houston to be ready to board our cruise the following day. I mean an eight hour trip with a three year old and seven year old is every parents dream...am I right? Well, It actually didn’t end up being too bad, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I also failed to mention in the intro that DW’s mom was joining us on this trip. She had never cruised before and we thought this would be a good chance for her, especially since we had two staterooms on the ship. I know you all were on pins and needles trying to figure out who the fifth person was. Anyway, it was time to head out. We planned on leaving the house around 7 AM and we actually got everything all loaded up and left by 7:15 of so. DS7 had to say goodbye to our dog before we left!






If there was one picture that epitomized our entire drive it was this:






Yes, it’s DS3 eating BBQ chips. I’m not sure what the deal was but he had about three bags on the way down from every gas station stop. I mean we don’t even buy chips for the house very often, but he ate these like crazy on this trip. And by the end of the bag there would be BBQ spices all over him! Haha

DS7 also must have picked up an ice cream sandwich somewhere along the way. He was excited to have the entire back seat to himself!






We stopped in Corsicana, TX on the way down for lunch at the Collin Street Bakery. We used to have some family in Corsicana so I was familiar with this place, but they’ve now got this really nice, new store/restaurant right on I-45. We had some good sandwiches for lunch and I think DMiL got a salad that she loved.





















This place is actually famous for their fruit cakes. I’m not a fan of fruit cakes in general as they are just strange to me, but this place has made a business off of them.

We were back on the road and by about 4:00 we had arrived at our hotel for the night, the Homewood Suites in Spring, TX. We had some friends going on the cruise with us and they had arrived about 30 minutes before us, but were staying at the same place. I was able to get everything off of the roof of the car while DW and the boys got settled in the room for the night.






We went out for dinner at about 5:30 so we could get back and get in bed before the big embarkation day. Our hotel was going to be about a 90 minute drive from the port, but the hotels are really expensive in Galveston and this would help us pass the time until we could actually arrive at the cruise port.

The boys naturally had to jump on the furniture a little before bed:






Overall, the boys did great in the car and the travel day went fairly smooth. Everyone was super excited for embarkation tomorrow!! Sorry, my picture rate will increase. I was still trying to get in vacation mode with the camera here on the first day!

*Up Next: The Best Gas Station Ever*​


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## StarWarsMomofGirls!

Hello! 

You guys are brave for making that drive. But I totally get it! Your pictures aren't showing up.


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## cstorm65

StarWarsMomofGirls! said:


> Hello!
> 
> You guys are brave for making that drive. But I totally get it! Your pictures aren't showing up.



Oh, I forgot to share the album. See if they are working now and let me know if they aren't I think I fixed it, but still forget to do that on Google Photos when I start a new trip report.


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## crabbymom

cstorm65 said:


> Oh, I forgot to share the album. See if they are working now and let me know if they aren't I think I fixed it, but still forget to do that on Google Photos when I start a new trip report.



Working now!  Thank you for the review!


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## Magical2017

Thanks for sharing this.


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## dnllmz

Hi I'm joining in!  Can't wait to hear more.


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## cstorm65

crabbymom said:


> Working now!  Thank you for the review!



Awesome!



Magical2017 said:


> Thanks for sharing this.



No problem. Thanks for joining in!



dnllmz said:


> Hi I'm joining in!  Can't wait to hear more.



Thanks for reading along!!


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## StarWarsMomofGirls!

I can see the pictures now!!!



cstorm65 said:


>


I don't know why but this picture is hilarious!


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## Lynne G

Great start, and we will be trying Royal next year, on the Harmony out of Port C.


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## cstorm65

StarWarsMomofGirls! said:


> I don't know why but this picture is hilarious!



He loved him some BBQ chips on this trip!



Lynne G said:


> Great start, and we will be trying Royal next year, on the Harmony out of Port C.



Thanks for reading. The Harmony will be so fun! We are looking forward to Royal finally sending an Oasis class ship like that to Galveston in 2021!


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## cstorm65

*Day 2 - Part 1 - The Best Gas Station Ever*

It was finally cruise day and we were all woken up by our usually alarm clock...DS3. He was up and happy as a lark at 6:45 AM! We managed to keep him quiet until about 7:15 with an iPad, but it was time to start getting ready. This picture sums up our two boys in the morning:






DS7 would definitely rather be sleeping still and DS3 wakes up happy and ready to go! I took the boys down at about 7:45 while DW and her mom finished getting ready. After we ate some breakfast, which was good, we went outside as this place had a nice basketball court so they could run off a little morning energy!











At about 8:30 we headed up to the room to grab our stuff and it was time to load up and head to the port! The port of Galveston was about an hour and 20 minutes away from our hotel and we wanted to arrive at around 10:30. We managed to get loaded up and on the road by about 8:45 and easily made it through Houston, but was had to make a pit stop that morning at the best gas station anywhere:






If you’ve driven through Texas you’ve probably seen these and let me say, they are awesome!











It is a one of a kind place for sure. Gas station, convenience store, restaurant, grocery store, shopping for decor and other stuff...all in one place! We got back on the road and before long we were seeing the signs we had been waiting for:
















It was about 10:10 when we finally saw this:






Look a little closer and the Liberty of the Seas is there!






It was our first view and we were all so excited to see our home for the next week.






We also had the Carnival Freedom in port today:






The port was crazy as the final groups form the last cruise were still getting picked up and people on our cruise were dropping off. It took us about 20 minutes to pull our car up and unload. Our plan was to pull the car in, unload our stuff and send with a porter, then we would take the car over to the cruise parking we had booked. This way we wouldn’t have to lug our big bags onto the shuttle, we would have already checked those. Let me say, this is the thing to do. It did take us 20 minutes or so, but when we saw other families boarding the shuttle and they were dragging big bags across the street and parking lots...it made it worth it! Overall the morning had gone to plan, hopefully check in would go just as well!

*Up Next: “Dad, Can I Have More Ice Cream?”*​


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## superme80

I can't wait to read more!  Your kids are adorable!!!!!


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## StarWarsMomofGirls!

cstorm65 said:


> It was finally cruise day and we were all woken up by our usually alarm clock...DS3


That is late.... My girls are up at 6:00 AM every day!!!! Well, except Disney were we break them to exhaustion. 



cstorm65 said:


> He was up and happy as a lark at 6:45 AM


Well, at least he wakes up happy. I will say my girls are not that happy waking up for school this year. sigh....


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## sommergirl25

Just getting back on the Dis after a short hiatus! We went to Disney in September and I just couldn’t bring myself to come back due to the Disney Blues. Decided to look at the Royal Caribbean section tonight because we have a cruise booked in April on Liberty of the Seas and I just happened to see your trip report! Your boys are getting so big! I can’t wait to hear how y’all liked the boat! Hope to get lots of good tips!


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## cstorm65

superme80 said:


> I can't wait to read more!  Your kids are adorable!!!!!



Update coming up now! Thanks!!



StarWarsMomofGirls! said:


> That is late.... My girls are up at 6:00 AM every day!!!! Well, except Disney were we break them to exhaustion.



Hahahaha...I know that! DW and I always say our kids better know how to stay up late and get up early if we are going to Disney!



StarWarsMomofGirls! said:


> Well, at least he wakes up happy. I will say my girls are not that happy waking up for school this year. sigh....



We have one child that does. DS7 on the other hand...oh my. He's not a morning person!




sommergirl25 said:


> Just getting back on the Dis after a short hiatus! We went to Disney in September and I just couldn’t bring myself to come back due to the Disney Blues. Decided to look at the Royal Caribbean section tonight because we have a cruise booked in April on Liberty of the Seas and I just happened to see your trip report! Your boys are getting so big! I can’t wait to hear how y’all liked the boat! Hope to get lots of good tips!



We loved Liberty! Such a great ship. We have done a Disney Cruise before, so certainly different, but not in a bad way. I would definitely recommend Royal Caribbean, especially if you are here in the central part of the country. Anyways, hopefully our report helps you!


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## cstorm65

*Day 2 - Part 2 - “Dad, Can I Have More Ice Cream?”*

We arrived at the cruise parking spot at 10:40 and by 10:55 we had parked and were onboard a shuttle headed back to the ship. DW and the boys were ready!











It was only about a five minute drive to the terminal, but it took the driver a bit to load everyone’s bags. We of course only had our carry on’s, so it was easy for us, but the other people on the shuttle still had all of their bags. We arrived here a few minutes later:






We got into the security line at 11:10 and it took us about 30 minutes to get from the start of this line, through security and then through check in. By 11:40 we were upstairs and I told April, this lack of crowd must have meant boarding was well underway!






We did stop to register the kids in the terminal for the kids club as that saves quite a bit of time over waiting until we get onboard. It also took our friends that we were traveling with another 5-10 minutes after us to check in. I think they said they were training a new person at check in, so things went smoothly, they were just walking this person through everything. We also had to let a few people take a bathroom break in the terminal, but it still wasn’t very crowded upstairs in the terminal. Once everyone was ready, at about 12:00, we made our way on the ship and it was super quick and easy! Before long we had our first view of the Royal Promenade:






Most people head straight to the buffet upon boarding and it is always super crowded. Our plan was to head straight to the pool deck and swim and play for 90 minutes or so while everyone else fought the crowds in the Windjammer. It turned out to be a great plan. The kids had this splash pad area all to themselves for about 20 minutes and then it never really got that crowded.






Of course we had to get some sunscreen on first! Look at all those empty deck chairs! Of course we positioned ours in the shade!






DS3 loved this area!






We also did some swimming in the main pools, which the boys loved, especially DS7.






While we did some swimming we heard people talking about this:






So naturally I had to go in and get a picture. Unfortunately they weren’t serving it yet, but still pretty cool. Of course, the hit of this time was the boys and the soft serve ice cream machine.











DS3 in particular would play in the water for about 10 minute and then come over and say, “Dad, can I have more ice cream?” Of course as any good Dad would do on vacation, I said, “yes” every time he asked! The rooms were ready at about 1:15 and so we headed down. We were going to get out of our wet clothes and then head to eat at Sorrento’s, which was a great choice with how crowded the Windjammer is on boarding day. The only weird thing was they had salad out at Sorrentos, which DW wanted, but when we asked there was no salad dressing. They said it had not been delivered up to them yet. At this point our bags had arrived and so we went back to get settled and we put DS3 for a quick nap in one of our rooms.

Yes, we had adjoining rooms, which was the best decision we made. We could let him sleep in one and still get stuff unpacked in the other one. We had promenade view interior rooms, which I’m sure I’ll talk more about as we go. At 3:30 we had muster, but as you can see DS3 was still sleepy!






Muster was pretty quick and uneventful and by 3:50 we were done and heading up on deck to watch us sail away!

*Up Next: Sail Away*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 2 - Part 3 - Sail Away*

We got up to the top deck at about 4:00 and we started sailing way not too long after that! The boys were busy looking out and searching for dolphins!
















Goodbye Galveston! See you in a week:











I’ve always been intrigued by how many ships are waiting outside of the harbour here in Galveston to get cleared to head up towards Houston.






After watching some sail away, DW, DMiL, and DS3 went down to get ready for dinner. DS7 and I went up to the arcade, not to play, but to get the $100 of credit we had pre purchased loaded onto his card. If you or your kids are going to play in the arcade at all it pays to pre-purchase some credits. We bought DS7 $100 of credit and only paid $80 for it, so it definitely pays off. It was quite an ordeal to get it put on his card though. It took us a good 20-30 minutes waiting for the one person working the arcade to help us as there were a lot of people trying to do this at the same time!

We made it back to the room at about 5:10 which was just 20 minutes short of when we had to check in for dinner. We cleaned up quickly and got everyone headed out to the dining room by 5:30. We waited just a few minutes for them to show us where our table for the week would be.






We were seated quickly and introduced to our servers Made and Mark. I’m sure I’ll talk more about them as we go, but they were awesome!






I was ready for dinner!






DS3 found his favorite item on the menu and tore it up:











Now, you know how the first cruise day goes. Everything is happening quickly and you are trying to get settled, so I didn’t get many pictures taken, so sorry, but it will get better!. DMiL and I got calamari as an appetizer and it was very good, especially a spicy sauce that was with it. I got the prime rib as an entree and it was awesome, just melted in my mouth! April got the NY Strip and she said it was good, but not the best steak she’d ever had. DMiL loved the salmon she got as her entree. DS7 also got spaghetti and both he and DS3 loved it!

Everyone was ready for dessert though:











DS3 just got some ice cream...he’s not very adventurous!






I got the Chocolate Hazelnut Cake. I loved it and would get it again, but DW didn’t like it too much. It had almost a bread pudding like texture which DW doesn’t love.






DW and DMiL enjoyed some vanilla ice cream as well. Overall it was a great first night here in the dining room!






Next, it was time to find some nighttime entertainment on the ship!

*Up Next: What a Sunset!*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 2 - Part 4 - What a Sunset!*

We finished dinner at about 7:00 and headed out to what would become one of our favorite locations on the ship on the outside deck of deck 4. DS3 was certainly enjoying himself!






We also spotted a Carnival ship in the distance:






We took a little while to walk around that deck and even up to the helipad on the front of the ship. What an awesome view up there and so cool you can get right up to the front. DS7 loved this area!






It was very windy though so we didn’t stay long. At this point we took DS3 back to the room as it was time for him to go to bed. DW’s mom was ready to go to bed as well so those two stayed behind. We then took DS7 and his friends up to the kids club as they wanted to go because Gaga ball was on the schedule tonight which they love to play! We walked by the closed adults pool on our way back down the see what was happening elsewhere on the ship.






We basically just sat and hung out with our friends in the lounge listening to the house band, who were very good.






We then moved over the to Schooner Bar and sat for a bit, listening to the piano player who was awesome! Of course I wasn’t having a great picture taking day so no pics of the Schooner Bar, but it was fun.

Before long it was 10:00 and we were heading back up to get the kids. I love the look down onto the Royal Promenade!






We picked up DS7, who loved the kids club this time and headed to take him to bed. DW was ready for bed as well, but I had one more thing I wanted to do. I was heading back to the promenade.











I walked for a bit on the outside of deck 4 before heading to my destination and saw we were making up some serious ground on the Carnival ship.











I was headed here:






Sorrentos’s!!! I wanted a little late night pizza, but of course you may remember I was terrible at taking pictures today. It does get better though, I promise! Anyways, I took my pizza outside of deck 4 to eat and by now we were passing the Carnival Ship.











Overall, a great first day and I was back up and in bed by 11:30. A fun-filled sea day is to come tomorrow!

*Up Next: “I See Dolphins!”*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 3 - Part 1 - “I See Dolphins!”*

I was up bright and early at 6:30. I just couldn’t sleep any longer on our first sea day. I headed out to explore the Royal Promenade a little and of course to grab some coffee. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but DW and I had the Royal Refreshment package for this cruise. A few months before the cruise it came available on the cruise planner for 35% off, which was like $19 per person, per day as compared to normally $30. It got us basically unlimited drinks on the ship that didn’t have alcohol. This included the specialty coffees from Cafe Promenade! I headed down here:






After picking up a vanilla latte I went down one floor to deck four to sit on the outside deck for a few minutes. I passed through an empty Boleros on the way.











Then finally out onto the deck. How beautiful is this in the morning?











After sitting for about 30 minutes and reading I walked around deck four. This is looking towards the front of the ship:






And towards the aft:











At about 7:15 I headed back in and picked up a latte for DW and also got me something else, probably a Frappuccino, which is basically an excuse to drink a shake in the morning!

I got back to the room a few minutes later and only DS3 was awake. Well, he was trying to wake up DW and DMiL. I gave DW her coffee and got DS3 dressed. I was going to take him up to Windjammer to get a doughnut or something while they all slept a bit more. I mean this was vacation, right? If they want to sleep I’ll let them sleep, which happens to be a completely different strategy than Disney World! Haha

Anyways, by 7:45 I had DS3 dressed and we headed up to the Windjammer. I told him to smile in the elevator and this was what he did:






Then he decided to smile:






We made it upstairs and found this great table!






I got him a doughnut, which he loved as you can tell from the pictures below. Now, about three times during the meal he was looking out the window and every time he saw a little whitecap on the ocean he would yell, “I See Dolphins!” Thankfully everyone up here was already awake, he is a loud human being! Back to the doughnuts:
















*Up Next: Some Cruising Classics...Trivia and Shuffleboard*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 3 - Part 2 - Some Cruising Classics...Trivia and Shuffleboard*

We headed back down to the room at about 8:15 and everyone was up and around. At about 8:30 we headed down to the main dining room for breakfast. (Side note: DS3 and I didn’t tell anyone we had already had doughnuts!)

We were given a great table this morning by a big window that the kiddos loved!











We had a nice breakfast that was served quickly. I had the Eggs Benedict that was excellent and DW loved just the regular scrambled eggs she got as well. DS3 actually had an order of pancakes and ate a bunch of them. So, I guess we’ll call this second breakfast!

We were done by 9:20 and headed up to let the boys play basketball as they had been begging to do this. Well, DS7 played...DS3 just hopped around thinking he was doing something against the big boys!











While they were playing a bit I walked back and took a few pics of the slides at the back of the sports court area.






And I found a big golf ball...haha






After this the big boys wanted to go to the arcade for a bit so I took DS3 down and we did a little trivia. I don’t recall what it was and we obviously didn’t win, but it was a fun, classic cruising activity. DS3 found a window too somewhere along the way!






The next bit was a whirlwind that I don’t have any pictures for. I went to the port shopping talk, which is pretty good just to get to know the ports, even if you don’t really want to make any major purchases. Then at 12:30 we headed up to the Windjammer to have lunch. It was super crowded on a sea day and finding a table for nine people, us and our friends, was tough, but after about 10 minutes we did it. I wrote down the ribs they had on the buffet were very good on this day and that the boys were loving the all you can eat hot dogs!

After lunch I took DS3 to take a nap, while DW took DS7 to see how the lines for the slides were. They ended up just swimming a little before coming back and DW switched with me so she could take a little nap. DS7 and I were going to play bingo, but it was really expensive. I mean $50 was the cheapest way to play. I mean we kind of just wanted to do it for fun, not as a serious deal, so I wish there would have been a way to do that. Instead of that though we headed out on deck four and played another classic cruise game that is free...shuffleboard. DS7 was getting really into it. So, let’s just say we would be back to play again!

At about 3:15 DS7 wanted to go up to the front of the ship again. He had a lot of fun being on the helipad!
















We then came back to the promenade for a few cookies before returning so everyone could rest up a little before dinner.











*Up Next: Ice Cream, Ice Cream, & More Ice Cream*​


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## Frozen2014

Great report.  Your kids are adorable!


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## pezgirlroy

Just have to chime in and say your kids are just adorable.  And I love secret doughnuts.


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## cstorm65

Frozen2014 said:


> Great report.  Your kids are adorable!



Thanks for reading along!!



pezgirlroy said:


> Just have to chime in and say your kids are just adorable.  And I love secret doughnuts.



Let me tell you...that kids loves him some doughnuts! I mean we thought our older son loved doughnuts, but our youngest takes it to a whole new level!


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## cstorm65

*Day 3 - Part 3 - Ice Cream, Ice Cream, and More Ice Cream*

After a little rest time we headed to dinner at 5:30. DS3 talked his way into a piggy back ride to the dining room!






On the way to the dining room we stopped to take some pictures above the Royal Promenade, so enjoy:































We eventually made it to the dining and it’s a good thing we did because we had some good stuff at dinner tonight. They had lobster bisque, which I didn’t get a picture of, but it was excellent! I also had this shrimp pastry type appetizer, which was really good as well!






For my entree I had the Beef Tenderloin as did DW and we both loved it. It was cooked really well!






And of course the kids had some ice cream for dessert, and it was about the fourth time today that they had ice cream including all of the teams we walked by the pool ice cream machine. While the boys were having this dessert DW and I discussed the theme of this trip may just be ice cream and more ice cream and more ice cream!











DS3 said this was his cold face after all that ice cream!






My dessert was the carrot cake special for the night. It was good, but I also got a creme brulee and it was really good as always!






DW and DS3 as they were finishing dinner!






We headed back to the room at 7:00 to pick up a few things before the boys went to the kids club. They had to check out the towel animal picture though!






DW and DS# also found the band performing on the promenade while we were in the room.
















We took the kids up to the club at 7:15 and they both stayed, even DS3, which was a little shocking. He’s pretty shy and doesn’t do well getting dropped off with babysitters or at the nursery at church unless he knows the person really well. So, we’ll see how it goes!

DW and I met up with our friends and headed to check out the sunset from the back of the ship before the show.











We then spent just a little time on deck 4 waiting for the show to start.






We headed into the show at 8:45. It was an entertainer named Finis Henderson who was a motown singer and comedian. He was really good at impersonations and we enjoyed him. He went from genre to genre and could impersonate almost anyone!






The show was over at 9:45 and it was a little difficult to find an elevator all the way up to the kids club to pick them up before they start charging you at 10 PM. But, we made it! DS7 wanted a picture on this thing before we went to the room...what are you doing son?






We got DW and DS3 to the room for bed and DS7 and I went down to grab a snack of pizza before we went to sleep. We did that quickly and then headed to bed. It is going to be an early morning in Cozumel tomorrow!

*Up Next: How Awesome Was That Breakfast?*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 4 - Part 1 - How Awesome Was That Breakfast?*

I was up early as is normally the case for me and went up to the Windjammer to get some coffee, have a littele breakfast, and watch the sun come up. Much to my surprise I was able to see the Disney Fantasy pulling into Cozumel just behind us! How awesome of a breakfast is this!!











Before too long I could see land!






I headed down to get DW some coffee from Cafe Promenade before heading back to the room. Another morning on the promenade!






We didn’t have an excursion today. We wanted at least one port day where we didn’t have plans so that we could enjoy the ship with a lot of the people gone. So our plan was to just get off and shop for a bit in the port area before coming back to enjoy the almost empty ship.

We decided to get room service breakfast and put the slip out the night before so that was quick and super convenient for us. DS3 was ready to go for our time in Cozumel...bucket hat and all!






We headed ashore at about 8:15 this morning and got some great pics walking towards the port area.


























There was a Carnival ship at the pier next to ours, but that goes to a different port area.






DS7 was excited to see our ship from the outside!


























Finally we got into the port area and DS7 was enamored with the shark on the sign at this restaurant!






And of course our obligatory picture of the boys in the big chair!






The plan was just to shop for a bit and then get back on and enjoy a less crowded ship...we’ll see how that works!

*Up Next: Souvenirs for All*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 4 - Part 2 - Souvenirs for All*

After getting into the port area we just planned on shopping a bit, but DW and I did plan on going to the Del Sol store and looking at some sunglasses. DS7 was definitely on the lookout for a toy as he is obsessed with toys and stuffed animals. Not sure what he was looking for here!






We found Del Sol after looking through a few other shops and DW and I both found some sunglasses we liked. We got a pretty good deal on them, and unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, but it was less than we planned on paying and of course you can replace them at any point if anything happens. Here’s what the boys did while we looked at sunglasses and DW’s mom watched them:






We also went through a few shops and found DS7 a toy he wanted. You’ll see him playing with it back on the ship down the update a little bit. We also found some vanilla in one of the stores, which was one other small thing we were looking for.

We headed back towards the ship at about 10:00, but not before stopping here to get a few pictures!











It was time to head back...











...but not before DS7 tried on some new shoes!











We got back onboard at about 10:15 and we all got our swimsuits on and were ready to take advantage of the pool without many people in them. DS7 played with his new stuffed animal while we all got ready! He loved this thing!











I also am doing a terrible job as a trip reporter because I have these pictures of Sorrentos at some point today, but we had lunch in the Windjammer according to my notes, so I’m just going to throw these in here and sorry, but there is no story to go with them!















*
Up Next: The Best Pool Day*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 4 - Part 3 - The Best Pool Day*

We headed up to the pool at 10:45 and I’m sorry to say I didn’t even take the phone or camera because we were so excited to have the pool all to ourselves and that couldn’t have been more true. There was no one in the pool. We got a great chair location and the only bad thing was the splash pad didn’t open until noon, so the boys were a little bummed about that, but we swam in the pool all the way until 12:00 when we went inside the Windjammer for a little lunch.

For lunch the boys enjoyed hot dogs again. I had a hamburger, because that just seemed like the right thing to do on a pool day, and it was pretty good. DW and DMiL had salads which they enjoyed. I also tried the Thai Chicken from the Jade area and it was awesome!

Anyways, we headed back to the pool by 12:30 and spent another hour and a half or so swimming and playing on the splash pad area. It still wasn’t very crowded. DW and I also put away a bunch of virgin pina coladas and strawberry daiquiris as we were getting our money’s worth out of the refreshment package!

At 2:00 we packed up and headed to the room for DS3 to have a nap. I took DS7 and we were going to go down and take our turn at a little trivia, but first look at how uncrowded the Promenade was:











We went down and settled into a spot in the Schooner Bar on Deck 4 for trivia at 3:00.






DS7 had to bring his new “friend” with him to trivia!






After trivia we headed up to the top deck to watch us sail away from Cozumel. We were about 45 minutes departing because a late tour from Chichen Itza was coming back. Thank goodness those people were on a ship tour! I took a few pictures while we waited:





















We finally pulled out at about 4:45 and got some nice shots of the Disney Fantasy that was still docked.





















*Up Next: Umm...Can I Have Another One of Those?*​


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## StarWarsMomofGirls!

cstorm65 said:


> Here’s what the boys did while we looked at sunglasses and DW’s mom watched them:


Was there a bed in the middle of the store? 



cstorm65 said:


> After trivia we headed up to the top deck to watch us sail away from Cozumel. We were about 45 minutes departing because a late tour from Chichen Itza was coming back. Thank goodness those people were on a ship tour! I took a few pictures while we waited:


This makes me so anxious! I think I would only do ship tours for this reason!


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## cstorm65

StarWarsMomofGirls! said:


> Was there a bed in the middle of the store?



Well, kind of. We were in the Del Sol sunglasses store and they are owned by the same people as the Cariloha store which sells sheets. In this port all of that stuff was in the same store. So, they got to lay on some expensive sheets while we looked at sunglasses! haha



StarWarsMomofGirls! said:


> This makes me so anxious! I think I would only do ship tours for this reason!



I know! I've heard horror stories of people missing the ship. I can't even imagine trying to make plans to catch up with the ship or just head home with all your stuff still aboard!


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## cstorm65

*Day 4 - Part 4 - Umm...Can I Have Another One of Those?*

After a nice sail away from Cozumel we were on our way to our next port of call for tomorrow, but first a fun night on the ship. First up was dinner at about 5:30.

The appetizer of a seafood cake was just ok for me, but the entrees were great tonight. I ended up getting two of them to try since they both looked so good. First was the Chicken Cordon Bleu which was really good. The cheese sauce was especially good.






The second entree I tried was the short rib which was served with vegetables. This was excellent, especially the super delicious sauce it had on it.






These were two of my favorite entrees this week. DW enjoyed the short rib as well, but she said she liked the tenderloin from last night a little better. As good as the entrees were it was the dessert that had me asking if there was a way to get another one of those! It was the chocolate melting cake brownie and ice cream.






This was just perfect! I mean I could have eaten two or three of these, I didn’t, but I could have! Anyway, that was a great finish to a great meal. Of course we stepped outside after dinner onto deck four as we did most every night to a beautiful view.






Both boys wanted to play basketball so we went upstairs as we had until 8:45 before the show for the night started. So we headed up to the sports deck:











The boys played for a good hour up there and while they were going I went and got a few fun pictures off the back of the ship.
















They were just playing away!
















We walked over to get on the elevator and DS3 was looking at the splash pad. I love how they light this up at night! It makes it look so cool!






We put the boys to bed at about 8:45 with DMiL and DW and I went with our friends to see the show, Saturday Night Fever. I couldn’t get any pictures, but it was fun and definitely were going to. We could tell that a little bit of the story line had been cut to allow it to fit in the allotted time on the ship, so that was a little weird, but the entertainers were all fantastic! It ended about 10:00 and DW was asleep in the room not more than 15 minutes later! Haha

I didn’t make it much longer because I wanted to get some rest. We had a great day planned in Grand Cayman the next day and I couldn’t wait!

*Up Next: Thank Goodness We Did a Ship Excursion*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 5 - Part 1 - Thank Goodness We Did a Ship Excursion*

We were up the next morning pretty easy, but we actually weren’t getting to Grand Cayman until 10 AM, so we had plans to go to the main dining room for breakfast. Well, we got here at 8:30 am and saw this:






We stood in line for about 10 minutes and never moved so we decided to head up to the Windjammer. When we got up there it was crowded too, but we got lucky that just as we were walking in they opened Giovanni’s Table for people to sit in while eating breakfast so we got a beautiful view with our breakfast:





















We all found plenty that we enjoyed and the boys liked looking down at all the seaweed in the water.






Then the boys found a boat outside!






Anyway’s it was a nice easy breakfast since were were able to find a nice seat in here:






We got back to the room and finished packing our bags for the excursion today and headed to the Star Lounge for check in at 10:15. We decided to do a ship excursion here so that we would get priority tender access instead of playing the waiting game for a tender ticket. Also, DMiL was staying on the ship today with DS3. We didn’t think he would do too great on the excursion and DMiL was happy to stay with him and just enjoy that ship life!

Anyways we got to the Star Lounge at 10:15 and in less than 15 minutes we were on the tender boat. There were other people all around the promenade and they were already super high in the tender boat numbers they were giving away. And, after talking to people on the ship later in the day that didn’t do a ship excursion, we were super glad we did one through Royal Caribbean.

We were off towards Georgetown, Grand Cayman:






Only one other ship was here with us today, the Carnival Paradise.






The tender ride was less than 15 minutes and by 10:50 we were waiting for our bus to head to the excursion. We had chosen the Stingray City and Starfish Point tour. I was excited about both, DS7 wanted to just see the stingrays, and DW was already saying she didn’t want to get in the water with the stingrays. So, we’ll see how that goes!






We made it onto the bus by 11:00 and were all ready to get over to our tour location.











*Up Next: Can We At Least Get a Picture Honey*​


----------



## NancyLuvsMickey

Just found your TR... Loving it!!! I haven't taken a cruise in probably 15-20 years... But reading your TR has got me thinking I need to book one, soon!!! 

I've been reading your past TR's too... Love Disney!!!  And congrats on being DVC owners!!!


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## cstorm65

NancyLuvsMickey said:


> Just found your TR... Loving it!!! I haven't taken a cruise in probably 15-20 years... But reading your TR has got me thinking I need to book one, soon!!!



You totally should! It was such a nice changeup for us to our Disney World vacations. Also, we had only ever been on a Disney cruise back when they didn't cost you half a years salary for us teachers, so we weren't sure how Royal Caribbean would be. It was certainly not at the same level as Disney in areas, but we had a fantastic time and for something that cost us about 1/3 of a Disney cruise it was fantastic and something we will definitely do again!



NancyLuvsMickey said:


> I've been reading your past TR's too... Love Disney!!!  And congrats on being DVC owners!!!



Thanks for reading along! That makes it fun to share!


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## NancyLuvsMickey

cstorm65 said:


> You totally should! It was such a nice changeup for us to our Disney World vacations. Also, we had only ever been on a Disney cruise back when they didn't cost you half a years salary for us teachers, so we weren't sure how Royal Caribbean would be. It was certainly not at the same level as Disney in areas, but we had a fantastic time and for something that cost us about 1/3 of a Disney cruise it was fantastic and something we will definitely do again!



I've been on 3 cruises 15+ years ago (before kids) and they were all with Royal Caribbean and I enjoyed them... I agree, I would love to do a Disney cruise, but my salary doesn't agree... I've been looking at cruises for next summer... I really like the 4 night cruise where you go to the private island twice and Nassau... My husband and youngest son have never been on a cruise... Better to start slow, just in case it's not their thing...


----------



## cstorm65

NancyLuvsMickey said:


> I've been on 3 cruises 15+ years ago (before kids) and they were all with Royal Caribbean and I enjoyed them... I agree, I would love to do a Disney cruise, but my salary doesn't agree... I've been looking at cruises for next summer... I really like the 4 night cruise where you go to the private island twice and Nassau... My husband and youngest son have never been on a cruise... Better to start slow, just in case it's not their thing...



Definitely! We had only done the 4 night on the Disney Dream prior to this 7 night on Royal, but I think doing that 4 night first was good for us. We knew what to expect and figured out we do like cruising which gave us some confidence that we would like the longer length cruise.


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## cstorm65

*Day 5 - Part 2 - Can We At Least Get a Picture Honey?*

We left off just having gotten on the road from the port area over to the boat for our excursion. It was just about a 15 minutes ride and we were quickly on our way! DW and DS7 were ready to swim with some stingrays...well, DW was ready to see them, maybe not swim with them!






It was a nice little drive out to Stingray City on the boat.











We left the dock area at 11:30 and arrived at Stingray City at around noon and DS7 couldn’t believe what he was seeing! They were some big stingrays!






DS7 and I ventured out into the water, but DW wanted no part of it to start with. She just videoed us from up on the boat and got a couple of pictures!






As you can see from the photo DS7 was all of a sudden super scared to death of being in the water by himself. He just wanted to hold on to me the entire time.











At one point I had talked DW into coming in the water with us to get some pictures. She came down the ladder and made it all of 45 seconds before she screamed when she thought something brushed her leg and hurried back up into the boat! It was quite the scene. I tried to say, “Can we at least get a picture together honey”, but she wasn’t having it. So we went to Stingray City and we didn’t get a picture there!

Anyway, DS7 wanted his snorkel so we let him wear that for a bit and he would look around at the stingrays underwater, but you couldn’t pay him to allow me to let go!











Overall this was a great part of the excursion for me. I loved getting to see the Stingrays up close and so did DS7 even though he wouldn’t get away from me at all. I will say he finally got brave enough to swim a bit on his own and did so for about 2 minutes before they announced it was time for us to go! Go figure!

I don’t think this is something we’d need to do every visit to Grand Cayman, but it was awesome to do this time! We were also glad we were on a smaller boat tour, probably only 35 people or so. There were only two other small boats at Stingray City while we were there so it wasn’t too crowded, but as we were leaving several other boats came and some of them were big, probably holding 150-200 people each. So it was nice to get in and out early before the big rush. Overall, Stingray City was so worth it and a one of a kind experience!

*Up Next: Fun with Starfish*​


----------



## StarWarsMomofGirls!

cstorm65 said:


> DS7 and I ventured out into the water, but DW wanted no part of it to start with. She just videoed us from up on the boat and got a couple of pictures!


I am not sure what I would do with sting rays... probably somewhere in between DW and you. Sounds fun though.


----------



## cstorm65

StarWarsMomofGirls! said:


> I am not sure what I would do with sting rays... probably somewhere in between DW and you. Sounds fun though.



So much fun! DW just didn't want to get touched by their fins if they swam by. It's definitely something you will get 10 different opinions from 10 different people!


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 5 - Part 3 - Fun with Starfish*

After spending a good 50 minutes at Stingray City we all loaded back up on the boat and headed to our second stop, Starfish Point. The stingray stop is obviously the popular stop on this tour, but I was pretty optimistic about Starfish Point as I figured it would be a little more low key than seeing the stingrays. It turns out I was correct. DS7 loved Starfish Point, probably because he wasn’t scared like he was to start at Stingray City. We got here at about 1:15 and ended up having 40 minutes to snorkel and see the starfish in the area.





















As you can tell the water wasn’t as clear and blue as it was at Stingray City, but it was certainly clear enough to see the starfish and enjoy our time here. DS7 enjoyed getting to use his snorkel gear to actually look at things underwater.


























We were able to get a family picture here as DW wasn’t as scared as she was at Stingray City!






We got back on the boat and by 2:00 we were heading back to the dock after a great tour. I thought it was awesome on the way back that the captain let all of the kids who wanted to drive the boat a little bit when it was out in the open!






Umm...look where we're going son!






We were back to the boats by 2:20 and it was a short 15 minute ride back to the port. I snapped a few pictures of a nice looking course on the way.
















And, Grand Cayman has some of the comforts of home too...a Pizza Hut:






and a KFC:






and...this:






Well, maybe that's not quite like home, at least not for us! Anyways, we were back at the port of 2:40 and planned to just look around a bit before taking a tender back to the ship.

*Up Next: That was a Good Burger*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 5 - Part 4 - That was a Good Burger*

Once we arrived back at port we spent just a little time shopping. We went to a few stores outside of the port and picked up a few things. I’m sure I have pictures of these, but I usually forget to take them until we get back home or something, but if I did I’ll post them wherever they fall in my picture order. Outside of the port I found myself a Grand Cayman t-shirt and DW got her a hat. DS7 was convinced he just wanted a shark tooth necklace, so we found one of those and he loved it!

I also was able to replace my water shoes that had gotten a hole in them that I didn’t check out before the trip, but I found some similar ones for only about $10, so that was a good thing!

Eventually we headed back into the secure port area and DS7 found this guy:






We shopped here for about 15 minutes, but not long as we were all pretty hot and tired and ready to get back on the ship.






We got in the tender line at 3:30 and it only took us 3-4 minutes to get on a tender boat. Of course the best part about tendering is some of the great pictures you get on your way to and from the ship:














































We made it back onboard the Liberty at 3:50 and us and our friends decided tonight was a great time to just head up to Johnny Rockets for dinner. We were all hot and sweaty and kind of just wanted to jump in the pool, so we decided for this one night we wouldn’t get dressed for dinner. We just headed up to Johnny Rockets and then we’d go swim after that. We got there at about 4:15 as we hadn’t had lunch on the tour so we were all ready to eat and they weren’t really very crowded.






I had been looking forward to this!











We of course got some fries and onion rings to start and both were delicious.






I got the smokehouse burger and it was awesome! The bbq ranch sauce on it was very unique and it tasted awesome. It was a great burger at sea!






By the end of this I was super full, but you also get a piece of apple cobbler included with your meal or you can buy the upcharge milkshake. It was a big piece of cobbler and a scoop of ice cream. This was out of this world! We all loved it and it was probably better because we didn’t even know we got this included!

We finished eating by 5:30 and headed down to get some pool chairs so everything could take a nice dip in the pool and maybe catch a movie on the big screen. I mean how much more of a relaxing evening could you ask for?

*Up Next: That’s a Lot of Balloons*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 5 - Part 5 - That’s a Lot of Balloons*

After a great dinner at Johnny Rockets we headed over to find some pool chairs for our evening relaxing at the pool. But first a great pic as we were getting ready to sail away from Grand Cayman.






Before long this was our view:






When we started sailing away I went over to get a few pictures of our last look at Grand Cayman.
















Before long we were busy enjoying our time at the pool. They do such a nice job lighting these areas up at night:






It was a beautiful night as we were sailing off towards our next destination.






We headed back to the room at about 8:00 after watching the movie How to Train Your Dragon on the big screen. DS7 was amused by the towel animal.






And DS3 was ready for bed in a hurry...this kid likes his bed time!






After getting the boys to bed DW and I went down to go to the show for tonight which was Love and Marriage. DMiL was ready for bed too so she stayed with the kids. The promenade was getting all set up for the 4th of July.






Look honey...that’s a lot of balloons! I told DW as they walked by with about 10 of these things!






They also had some sales going on, of course they spent our entire cruise trying to sell these dang watches!











We didn’t buy any watches, but we did each find a Royal Caribbean t-shirt at the 2 for $20 t-shirt sale. After getting our shirts it was time for the show, which we enjoyed. And back to the elevator to close out Wednesday.






We got back to the room at about 11 PM and were in bed shortly thereafter. One more big port day tomorrow and we were looking forward to this one!

*Up Next: This is a Nice Port*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 6 - Part 1 - This is a Nice Port*

It was already the morning of our final port day of the cruise and we were almost in port at Falmouth, Jamaica when I got up. DS7 was up not too long after as well at about 7:15. He had slept with his snake!






We had decided the easiest way to have breakfast since we were trying to get off the ship to our excursion today was to do room service. It arrive at about 7:20:






I don’t remember what all we ordered and we were trying to get organized for our beach day so I didn’t write much down, but it was a nice easy way to have breakfast and still get out of the room on time.

By 8:30 we had disembarked and had this great view of the Liberty of the Seas.






I had seen a bunch of pictures and videos and always thought this port area was set up nicely with a big secure area that had nice looking shops and food vendors. Once we got into the port area DW agreed that this was a nice port area! I just like how it is organized, well laid out, and there is actually space to walk.











We stopped for a few pictures with the ship before heading to find our ride to the beach.











For this day we had booked a private excursion to a place called 876 Beach Club. This was a relatively new property that we only paid $21 per person for and that included transportation, entry, a beach chair, and access to the inflatable water park. It did not include any food or drink, but that is good for us since we don’t drink so the all inclusive places usually aren’t a good value for us. They did have a full bar and food items as well.

Anyway, we had to walk a bit to find our bus since it wasn’t a ship excursion, but we found it pretty easily by 8:50 or so. We got on the bus and we pulled out right on time at 9:00. There were two groups of people on our bus, some for the place we were going and then some for a place a little further down the island. We got to the place at 9:10, which was awesome. The knock on Falmouth is that a lot of the resorts are over an hour from the port, but this place is so close...it was great! Everyone was ready for the beach day, even DW’s mom!











*Up Next: There’s Nobody Here*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 6 - Part 2 - There’s Nobody Here*

After our quick drive from the port area we had arrived at our beach club destination of the day. When we got out I was thinking we have to check in, but an employee there just checked my paper I had printed off and took us to our chair. We only had to pay like $10 per person prior to travel through the tour company and were going to pay the balance when we arrived, but the guy said, “No problem, we’ll take care of that later.” Let me just say all of the people here were so nice and helpful, although it did seem a little unorganized, but probably some of that was due to them being a new place. Anyways, I know you guys are just waiting for the view...so here it is:






DW and DS3 wasted no time getting in the water.











Meanwhile DS7 and I were busy finding life jackets so he and his friends could go out to the floating water park. Also, it was important to note they were very strict and attentive to making sure everyone going to the water park had a life jacket and they had a lifeguard on duty. They also had a couple of kids, who I think were the life guards kids that helped our kids learn how to do the toys on the floating obstacle course. Those kids were awesome at helping our kids!

After spending some time doing that DS7 came back up to play in the sand and shallow water a bit. So, I got to take some more pics of the view from our chairs! Does it get any better than this?































Behind us you can see there is a building here, but we never went inside of there.






And they do have a large number of stacked up chairs ready for guests, but I don’t think there were more than 12-13 people here the day we were. I mean it seemed like there was nobody there!






DS3 was busy playing in the sand and you can tell he was enjoying it!






DMiL also took a few minutes to snap a picture of DW and me. I mean we were there on this beautiful beach, we had better get a picture!











And back in the water for some more fun!
















That’s it for now. Next time I’ll wrap up our stay at the beach and we’ll see what we can get into at the port!

*Up Next: “I Want a Soccer Ball Too”*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 6 - Part 3 - “I Want a Soccer Ball Too”*

We left off still enjoying our time at the beach in Falmouth, Jamaica. We had done our time on the water toys and now DW and I were just relaxing in the water with DS3. We tried to get a selfie here, but the best part is the reflection in our sunglasses!






Some more fun water pictures:





















DS7 loved the water play area, which was kind of set up as an obstacle course. It was a little hard to pull yourself up on the toys if you didn’t have much upper body strength, but once you got up there it was a ton of fun! This picture also shows still how un-crowded this place was at around noon.






We had arrived at about 9:15 and we had booked a 4-5 hour tour, so we thought the bus would come get us around 2:00. Well, when the bus dropped us off they said they would be back at about 4:00, which our all aboard time was 5:00. Not to mention by 2:00 we were all tired!






So the host there at the Beach Club helped us find a taxi to take us back and we negotiated a fair price to take the nine of us in our party back in his van. We did that at about 1:30 and then we had about 45 minutes to get our stuff together and settle our tab. We had ordered some hot dogs and french fries to snack on, and the boys loved them by the way, and we had to pay for a few drinks. We also tipped our host/waiter as he was super helpful to us!

This place also had nice indoor restrooms for the guests to use which is a very important feature as well as a foot washing station. You guys know how miserable it is with the sand everywhere, so that was a big benefit.

Our driver came back at about 2:15 and had us back to the port by 2:30 or so. It was an added expense, of about $5 per person, but we wanted to be back earlier than the tour transportation would get us there. Also, this way we had a little bit of time to shop in this awesome port area!









































After we had looked around for a bit DW had been looking for something to get the boys. She had settled on a soccer ball for DS3 since he played a little soccer that previous spring, but DS7 ended up whining a little bit and saying, “I want a soccer ball too.” We tried to tell him that we were going to get him something else, but he was tired and that is what he wanted at this point, so we said if that’s what you want as your Jamaica souvenir then that’s what you’ll get!











They actually were playing with these soccer balls today in the backyard! This “One Love” sign was pretty cool in person, but it is really hard to even tell what it is in the picture, but hey, we tried!






Eventually we finished up in the port area and headed back on board the Liberty of the Seas at about 3:00.






We had to get cleaned up because it was 4th of July dinner tonight in the dining room and we weren’t really sure what to expect!

*Up Next: This is the Best Cheese Ever!*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 6 - Part 4 - This is the Best Cheese Ever!*

After getting back to the room we spent a little time making sure we got the sand out of all of our swimsuits, water shoes, etc. That is the worst part about the beach is how the sand gets in all your stuff, but hey...I’m not complaining! After cleaning things up a bit DW stayed with DS3 while he took a quick nap before dinner. DS7 and I headed down to the Promenade for a bit...first up was to check out the 4th of July decorations...they had it looking good!






Of course you know we didn’t just go to look at the decorations though, we had something else on our mind...






Yep, we got some Ben & Jerry’s. It was our first of the trip and let me tell you, we enjoyed it!
















After our ice cream we walked down deck four a little bit and got some great views of Jamaica!











DS7 was a little hungry as all he had eaten was a hot dog at the beach club at around noon so we went to get him a slice of pizza from Sorrento’s. I had to get what became one of my favorite appetizer type dishes onboard, it was this spicy cheese from Sorrentos. It was amazing! Just enough spices and red pepper flakes to make it a little spicy and the cheese was covered in that and some olive oil. It was divine!






We ended up back out on deck four to enjoy our snacks and had some more great views:
















*Up Next: Sail Away*​


----------



## chamberlain

Loving your trip report!  Your beach day at Jamaica looks really nice.  Those soccer balls are so cute and a great souviner for your boys.  My only problem would be finding room in the suitcase for one!


----------



## cstorm65

chamberlain said:


> Loving your trip report!  Your beach day at Jamaica looks really nice.  Those soccer balls are so cute and a great souviner for your boys.  My only problem would be finding room in the suitcase for one!



That place was great and the price was good as well! They loved the balls...now, they play basketball with them more than soccer, but hey, that's how it goes! As far as the space we were just lucky we drove from home to the port. If we would have had to fly the boys would have had to carry those things on the plane, definitely no room in the bags!


----------



## NancyLuvsMickey

That obstacle course looks like fun!!! But I bet it's not as easy as it looks!!! And what gorgeous views!!! I could look at sand and clear blue water all day...  

Mmmm, ice cream is always good!!! And those cheese slices look delicious too!!!


----------



## cstorm65

NancyLuvsMickey said:


> That obstacle course looks like fun!!! But I bet it's not as easy as it looks!!! And what gorgeous views!!! I could look at sand and clear blue water all day...



It was a gorgeous place for sure! I did not try the obstacle course, but you had to have a lot of upper body strength! DS7 flew all over the thing of course, but I would have had trouble!



NancyLuvsMickey said:


> Mmmm, ice cream is always good!!! And those cheese slices look delicious too!!!



Both were delicious!


----------



## PAsFab5

I can’t believe how big your boys have gotten! The first trip report I followed your little guy was only 1!!!!!  Thanks for the cruise overview, I have never been on one and we are considering one for next June (2021) so this is giving me a much better idea of what to expect!


----------



## cstorm65

PAsFab5 said:


> I can’t believe how big your boys have gotten! The first trip report I followed your little guy was only 1!!!!!  Thanks for the cruise overview, I have never been on one and we are considering one for next June (2021) so this is giving me a much better idea of what to expect!



Thanks for reading along!

The cruise was awesome! We really enjoyed Royal Caribbean...of course Disney is even better, but really no major negatives with Royal Caribbean either.


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 6 - Part 5 - Sail Away*

There isn’t much to this post, but I did take a bunch of pictures of sail away from Falmouth and so I’m just going to share those here. We pulled out at 4:30, which was just about an hour before dinner.



























































































*Up Next: Holy Carbonara*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 6 - Part 6 - Holy Carbonara*

After watching a great sail away we headed to the Main Dining Room at about 5:30 for dinner. We had a great dinner tonight and it was a special 4th of July dinner. I don’t think the menu was any different, but they had a different dessert or two for the holiday. We did get a special menu. Here was DW and the boys with our great server Made behind them:






And the special 4th of July menu:






DS3 enjoyed his dinner...yes, you guessed it, spaghetti for the 5th night in a row!






They even decorated the main dining room for the holiday...pretty cool!






I got the coconut shrimp appetizer along with DW and DMiL. We all loved it, but the shrimp were small shrimp. Usually coconut shrimp are the jumbo size shrimp. So that was a little weird, but they tasted really good! I got the Fried Cod and Rice as my entree, well, one of my entrees! It was ok. I was expecting something a little better. The batter wasn’t very crispy which made it not as appetizing to me...I mean, when you are used to Yorkshire Fish Shop in Epcot not much lives up to that.






Now, just when the meal was leaving something to be desired my second entree showed up and it was the Pappardella Carbonara pasta. This was fantastic! It was a simple pasta dish with egg yolk, parmesan, and prosciutto, but the simplicity made it great! I could have eaten another order of this stuff and I wished I had gotten two of these instead of the fish!






DW got the Braised Lamb Shank as her entree and she enjoyed it. I tried a bite and thought it was very tender and cooked well, but wasn’t seasoned quite enough. They did have a big napkin waving celebration because it was the 4th of July!






I went with some pretty standard desserts tonight, a Creme Brulee and a Royal Cheesecake. Both were so fantastic I didn’t even get pictures! I think it was the first time I had gotten the cheesecake and it was a really solid one. Nothing spectacular, but the perfect consistency and tasted great. The Creme Brulee was awesome as it had been on other prior nights. By 7:00 we were heading out of here:






We headed down to the Royal Promenade for the 4th of July party and “carnival”. At 7:15 they did the National Anthem which was nice, but it was crowded.






For the holiday they had different groups of cast members set up carnival style games on the Royal Promenade. It was a great idea in theory, but I don’t think they really thought through the number of people that would be there and packing them all and the games onto the promenade was a big mistake. You couldn’t even walk down the promenade, much less have much room to play games. On top of that there was not even a way to tell where the lines for the games were.

We headed out by about 7:40 after trying to battle the people and went up to the top deck. And there was no one up here!






I mean the games would have been great spread out on the pool deck and there would have been more room for people...but, they didn’t ask me! haha











We took the boys to the kids club at around 8:00 and the adults headed down to the comedian show in the main theatre. We stopped by the photo studio...man they make some money on these things!






On our way into the theatre they had a huge rum cake set up for the 4th of July. I grabbed a piece and it was massive!






We got sat down after getting a drink and were ready for the comedy show:











The show was pretty good...the cake, not so much. Let’s just say the cake had about three times as much rum as a rum cake needs. I mean I like rum cake and couldn’t even hardly eat much of it. It was just soaking wet in rum! Too much for us! Haha

We went up to get the boys after the show at about 9:45 and by 10:15 we were all asleep...before the big 4th of July fun on the promenade happened again outside our window! That’s ok though, it was a great...and tiring day, but we loved it!!

*Up Next: Why Are You Spending Money on That?*​


----------



## NancyLuvsMickey

What a great way to spend the 4th of July!!!!  I just noticed there's an up-charge on some of the meals at dinner time... Back in the good ole days all the meals were free...


----------



## Frozen2014

Omg...that last picture.  Sooo want cruising to start up again!
What an amazing cruise your family had.  Thanks for sharing...esp at a time like this.


----------



## cstorm65

NancyLuvsMickey said:


> What a great way to spend the 4th of July!!!!  I just noticed there's an up-charge on some of the meals at dinner time... Back in the good ole days all the meals were free...



Yes, there are definitely several options for up-charge "signature dining" meals. We ate dinner in the main dining room each night and always enjoyed it, so you can definitely go without the up-charge meals and still have a great time. We did do guacamole class and lunch in Sabor. The guacamole class part was a little disappointing (I haven't gotten to this in my trip report yet...), but the meal we had after was great. So the specialty dining places have really good food, but we found all of the included venues to be really good as well. Thanks for reading along and commenting!


----------



## cstorm65

Frozen2014 said:


> Omg...that last picture.  Sooo want cruising to start up again!
> What an amazing cruise your family had.  Thanks for sharing...esp at a time like this.



I know...me too! I was planning on starting a PTR too for our Disney trip in July. Haven't gotten motivated to start yet, figured I'd see what the next couple of weeks hold for us all, but wanted to go ahead and finish with this cruise trip report! Thanks for reading!


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 7 - Part 1 - Why Are You Spending Money on That?*

I was up and ready to go by about 7:45, which was pretty late for sleeping in for us! I went down and got DW and I some Starbucks at Cafe Promenade as I did about every morning of the cruise! Great use of our Refreshment Package!

We had the kids up and dressed by about 8:30 and went up for some breakfast at the Windjammer.






DS3 wanted a cinnamon roll, pancakes and a donut!






I on the other hand went with some bacon, sausage, and hash browns! Some of my favorite things!






We finished up breakfast and went to the arcade at about 9:20 for DS7 to finish up with his money. We wanted him to finish it up today as the arcade is usually crazy on the last sea day with people trying to finish up using their credits. DS3 played some games too...well, he played with the equipment for the game!











DS7 spent most of his money with his friends at the claw game trying to get rubber duckies. I kept saying, “Why are you spending money on that?” He said, “Because it’s fun and we want ducks!” I think we found out that game was very addictive for seven year old boys for some reason. DW and DS3 went out to walk around some while DS7 finished in the arcade.






We went back to the room after finishing in the arcade to grab our stuff and head to the pool for a little while. We found a few chairs in the shade over by the splash pad area.











DS3 absolutely loved this area to play in as you can see!!











Son, those are my sunglasses!






We swam and played on the lido until about 12:15 before heading out to find some lunch. It was really nice to get up a little early to head to the pool because at about noon people were really making the pool deck crowded as more and more came out for the day. So, definitely get your pool time in early on sea days!

*Up Next: Best Buffet Item of the Week*​


----------



## NancyLuvsMickey

Sounds like a great start to your last day on the ship... Can't believe it's almost over!

How are things in your world??? Our state (Iowa) closed schools for the rest of the school year so the kids are finishing out the school year doing online lessons... The governor has opened up 77 of the 99 counties... I live in one of the 22 counties still shut down... I'm on week 8 of working from home... I work for a major university and our boss isn't in any hurry getting us back into the office since we're able to do our jobs safely from home... One advantage of working in the IT field is that we've always been able to do our job anywhere... Including on vacations (yes, sometimes they make us take a laptop on vacation if we have something critical running)...

Hope your family is staying safe!!!!


----------



## cstorm65

NancyLuvsMickey said:


> Sounds like a great start to your last day on the ship... Can't believe it's almost over!
> 
> How are things in your world??? Our state (Iowa) closed schools for the rest of the school year so the kids are finishing out the school year doing online lessons... The governor has opened up 77 of the 99 counties... I live in one of the 22 counties still shut down... I'm on week 8 of working from home... I work for a major university and our boss isn't in any hurry getting us back into the office since we're able to do our jobs safely from home... One advantage of working in the IT field is that we've always been able to do our job anywhere... Including on vacations (yes, sometimes they make us take a laptop on vacation if we have something critical running)...
> 
> Hope your family is staying safe!!!!



Our state never fully shut down, other than the elderly and immunocompromised, but schools were shut down for the rest of the year. With DW and I both in education we've just been hanging out at home with the boys, playing in the yard a lot, and taking a lot of walks! This has been a spring to remember for sure! It is so comforting to have a job you can do from home during things like this. We are doing well. I've finally decided to start a PTR for our trip in July...who knows if this trip will happen, but we are holding out hope since we have DVC points that will expire if we don't use them. So I figured I'd go ahead and start a PTR and see how things go!


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 7 - Part 2 - Best Buffet Item of the Week*

After a morning of swimming and lounging by the pool we were ready to do what you are supposed to do on cruises...go eat some more! Haha

We decided to try the Main Dining Room for lunch today since the Windjammer always is a little crowded on sea days and it was a great lunch option. DS7 was ready for his lunch:






They did have a menu and I didn't get a picture of what I ordered, but I think I got the Fish Enchiladas and they were pretty good, but nothing I'd go out of my way for. I think DS7 just went with the buffet. DW, DMiL, and DS3 were tired and not hungry, so they went back to the room for a nap. Their plan was to just grab a bit of pizza on the way for DS3. So it was DS7 and I for lunch with our friends who were with us.






We headed up to the buffet and saw this:






Sweet and Sour Chicken and it was the best item I had all week on any of the buffets onboard. It was great!! DS7 loved it as well and I had to go back and get us another plate to share. They also had fried rice, which we were really excited about because DS7 and I love this style of food, but it wasn’t all that great. It was basically regular white rice that they had put some soy sauce and veggies in. It did not have the taste and texture of fried rice, so that was a little disappointing. But, we just got more Sweet and Sour Chicken!

They also had a really neat dessert area set up in here...DS7 was impressed with the display!
















Before long DS7’s belly was full and he was ready for a little rest.






I did grab his picture before we left on the staircase:






We headed outside for a few minutes to our favorite place on the ship:






We even spotted a storm off in the distance as we were sailing through the Gulf.






We walked through Boleros, which is the latin night club:






And stopped in the picture studio and DS7 wanted to do some poses:
















It was almost time for our next activity of the day which was the Ice Skating Show at 2:30. That show was the reason DW and DMiL took DS3 back for a nap so they could get up by 2:00 to meet us to get our seats for the show. DS7 and I passed a few final minutes in the Cafe Promenade waiting for the others to  come join us.






We headed into the ice skating rink at 2:00 to get seats because we had heard it was sometimes hard to get good seats, but it wasn’t too crowded that early and we got pretty good seats:






We weren’t allowed to photograph in the show, but it was enjoyable and pretting cool to see them do it on a moving ship in the ocean! The boys both enjoyed it, although the music was all a little older so they didn’t relate too much, but they enjoyed watching them skate at least.

After the show I ran DS3 over for some pizza as he hadn’t eaten before his nap because he was so tired from swimming...this boy loved some Sorrento’s on this sailing! Up next we’ll see what else we could get done this afternoon and then head off to dinner!

*Up Next: “Dad, I Just Want to Play Basketball”*​


----------



## cstorm65

Just putting this here that I started a PTR for our trip this summer. I had a hard time getting motivated to start this as all of us traveling in July don't know if the parks will be open and/or in what capacity, but we are holding out hope!

A Trip Full of New Memories...Hopefully It Happens! - A July 2020 PTR​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 7 - Part 3 - “Dad, I Just Want to Play Basketball”*

After the ice show I was going to take DS3 to get some pizza and he was really feeling doing a little dancing on our way! haha











We eventually made it over to Sorrentos and got him a little snack...I may or may not have had a snack myself!











We sat down the promenade a bit as it was pretty crowded out here this afternoon on a sea day.






We headed back to the room after this as we were going to go see what everyone else was doing.











It was about 4:00 when we got back and as we were sitting in the room deciding what to do to pass the 90 minutes before dinner and DS7 looked over at me with the most sad, puppy dog face I’ve ever seen and said, “Dad, I just want to go play basketball!” This kid loved the basketball court more than anything on the ship I think. So, we headed up top while DW and the others got ready for dinner to play for a bit.











I grabbed one of these on our way to the basketball court...thank your Royal Refreshment package!






We played basketball until about 5:00 and ran back to the room to quickly get ready for dinner. We made it to the dining room at 5:30 and it was actually a formal night with lobster!






I started with a ceasar salad which was good. Of course I ordered the lobster entree and it was very good, just as expected. Our server actually brought an extra lobster for each end of our table and I ended up taking care of most of that one too!






In addition to the lobster I also ordered the Cheese Tortelloni which was excellent! I would definitely recommend this and order it again on our next cruise!






Finally, the big finale I had been waiting for all week, the molten chocolate cake! It was really good and the middle was just a little runny which was really good.






I also got some of the Baked Alaska because you have to on lobster night don’t you. It’s like a right of passage on a cruise ship! It was awesome and I think I liked it more than the molten chocolate cake. Now DW hated it, but she is funny sometimes with the texture of different things and she wasn’t crazy about the texture. I wished I would have had two of them though!






Also, everybody got one of these cakes:






It was Royal Caribbean’s 50th anniversary or something. I didn’t eat much of it, although it was good, just not as good as the other two desserts! DW and DS7 were definitely satisfied with their dinner.






It was a great formal night dinner and everyone had a great time! What else could we get into around the ship with only two nights left?

*Up Next: Picture Around the Ship*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 7 - Part 4 - Pictures Around the Ship*

After dinner we went outside on Deck 4 and took a few pictures of the family. It's a formal night so you have to take some pictures right?
















We headed back to the room and found our nightly towel animal had made his appearance and DS7 was very impressed!
















After putting some less “formal” clothes back on we headed up to the lido to look around and relax a bit. It turned in to me just taking a bunch of pictures of the awesome sunset that was taking place in the gulf that evening. Very few pictures with us in it, but it was such a great sunset I have a bunch of pictures of it.







































































With that it was about 7:45 and we continued searching for some things to do. We were planning on going to the hypnotist show at 8:45, but we thought we would go play some mini-golf. Stay tuned to see how that went!

*Up Next: Ping Pong Battle*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 7 - Part 5 - Ping Pong Battle*

After hanging out for a bit up on the top deck we had a little time to kill before the hypnotist show so the boys had some fun playing ping pong!
















The games actually got pretty heated, which is pretty normal for boys! Haha

Meanwhile, I took a few pictures of the really awesome sunset tonight:
















Eventually it was time for the show and tonight it was a hypnotist. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but DMiL took DS3 back to go to sleep at some point in the evening, but DS7 loved the hypnotist. We even thought he was hypnotized at some point because when the guy was doing his thing with the people on stage DS7 was doing everything he said. I wish I knew how to get him to listen that well at home!

Eventually he cracked a joke though when the people started doing funny stuff and enjoyed the rest of the show. By 9:45 the show was over and DW and DS7 headed back to bed. After getting them settled down and getting our luggage out in the hall While I was doing that DS7 was having fun with the towel animals!






Once DW and DS7 got laid down I went down for one final serving of pizza from Sorrentos and it was excellent as always! I also stopped in and took a few pictures of Cafe Promenade, although I’m not sure I got anything tonight.











By 10:30 or so I was back in the room and ready to get a good night's sleep before our final sea day of the cruise.

*Up Next: Sunrise on the Ocean*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 8 - Part 1 - Sunrise on the Ocean*

I got up at about 6:00 on what was our final full day on the ship as I wanted to see the sunrise this morning. We had been so busy throughout the week I hadn’t managed to get up that early yet, but today was the day! I got my coffee and was ready to see the sun come up.






The promenade is not very crowded at this time of day...that is the only time of day you can say that!






It was a little cloudy to get a full on sunrise, but it was definitely beautiful to look at.
















I ended up heading out to the helipad to snap some pictures as we were heading north, back towards Texas.
















After getting some sunrise shots I went up to the top decks and took some pictures on the sports deck. First up was the ping pong area...no one out playing yet!











Adventure Ocean is also on this deck of the ship. The entrance is actually inside the arcade...great money making idea. Make the parents walk the kids through the arcade every time they are going to the kids club! Genius!!






A little further back on the ship is the Flowrider area...






And of course one of my favorite views on the ship. I mean I could sit back here all day!
















Also on this deck is all of this fun stuff to do, again, not much activity back here at 7 AM!
















Well, so that was what I did on this final morning. Just take some pictures around what was a pretty empty ship at this time. It was time to head back and see if everyone else was up yet and what they wanted to do today!

*Up Next: Is Mini Golf Finally Open?*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 8 - Part 2 - Is Mini Golf Finally Open?*

I headed back down to deck 5 after my time on the upper decks so I could grab some coffee for DW before heading back to the room.











Things were pretty quiet out on the promenade this morning.






I really enjoyed the promenade area overall during the trip, but it was especially nice early in the mornings when there wasn’t much activity on the ship yet.


























I eventually made my way to the other end of the promenade next to Sorrentos before heading back up to the room.











I headed back to the room at about 7:30 and everyone else was up and getting ready to go for the day. Our plan was to head up and grab some breakfast at the Windjammer before seeing if the mini golf was open this morning. DS3 was up and checking out the action down on the promenade.






We ended up getting up to the Windjammer at about 8:00, but it wasn’t too crowded yet. I guess everyone was still sleeping on the final sea day of the cruise! DS3 was ready for his traditional breakfast of donuts and cinnamon rolls! I mean when you are on vacation eat what makes you happy...right?











After breakfast we went up to the mini golf area and it was open! We had been up in the evening one night at about 6:30 and it was closed for the night, which we all thought was super early for something like that to close since there was still a couple of hours of daylight left. Anyways, it was open today and we had a fun time playing some mini golf in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico!





















*Up Next: Do We Get to Make Guacamole?*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 8 - Part 3 - Do We Get to Make Guacamole?*

After our round of mini golf it was time to head over to the pool and splash pad for our final sea day. We got over there at about 9:00 and didn’t have any problems finding a spot to sit. They even had a crew member out on the pool deck making balloons for the kids. Our kids decided on a couple of swords!






DW and DS3 spent some time here at the splash pad next to the chairs we grabbed while DS7 and I went over to the main pool with his friends.











By about 10:30 we headed back to the room because DW and I along with our friends had scheduled to go to the guacamole making class at Sabor at 11:00. We got the kids dressed and I ran them back up to the kids club, but at that point I found out the kids club closed at 12:00...well, our guacamole class didn’t end until 12:30-12:45. We had thought you could just pay the extra like $6 an hour to leave them during that time, but I found out they don’t even do that from 12-2, which is their lunch time. More on this later as we didn’t know what we were going to do yet.

We got to Sabor and checked in at 11:00 for the guacamole class. They had a special menu just for this class which was cool.











The first thing they did was make some special drinks, which took a majority of the demonstration time and the purpose of this was to sell the different liquors that were available on the ship. This literally took 30 minutes. DW and I don’t drink so this was pretty worthless to us. We just wanted guacamole!






Finally, we got to the guacamole part of the demo and we were all expecting to make guacamole at the guacamole making class. But...no, only one person in the whole group of about 25 people got to make it. The rest of us just got an order from the kitchen. We did get a printed recipe on paper, but that was it. Don’t get me wrong, the guacamole was delicious, but to call it a “guacamole making class” is not really the truth. We were pretty disappointed in that. It took about 20 minutes or so for that demo and then we moved on to the meal.

The guacamole came out first and it was excellent, as expected.






They also brought out some other sauces with the chips and guacamole and they were pretty weak and didn’t have a lot of flavor. My standards on salsa are pretty high though as we are big fans of some great Mexican food restaurants in our area.






Next up was the Chili Calamari. It was very good and we especially enjoyed the lime flavored sour cream with it.






After that came the Queso Fundido and we all enjoyed it. It was a little hard to get out with the tortillas they brought, but that was because it was super cheesy and sticky. I guess you can’t complain about that though!






At this time it was about 12:00, so I ran up to get the kids from the kids club. I took all four of them, which included our friends' kids back to our rooms with April’s mom, but we didn’t really want to leave all four kids with her as they can get pretty crazy! I stayed for a few minutes and then DW wanted me to switch and she would go back up with the kids. This was the bad part about the class/lunch for us. The specialty restaurant didn’t even open to the public until noon, but the kids club closes at noon? How are parents supposed to go to the specialty restaurants if the kids club isn’t open. And, for that matter, who needs a two hour lunch? Or could they not send some people to lunch from 12-1 and then another group from 1-2. That whole thing was just bizarre to us. This was probably the biggest disappointment on the cruise for us, although I guess if that was it then things weren’t all too bad!

I got back down and some of the entrees had arrived. I got the Chicken and Corn Empanadas. They were pretty good. The tops that were crispy were great, but the bottoms laying in the sauce had gotten kind of soggy.






After this I didn’t get a picture of the dessert because I ran back up to switch with DW and let her come back for dessert. She said it was ok, but not as good as the guacamole!

Overall the experience was fine, when not taking into account the weird policy at the kids club. Of course I did come away feeling like Jurassic Park, "You do have dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour?" Thinking you mean we don't get to make guacamole at the guacamole class? Otherwise we had a good time and most of the food was delicious!

We got done at about 12:45 and ran up to grab the bigger kids so DS3 could lay down for a nap. I might have napped a bit too as DW and DS7 went up to play a little basketball for a bit. At about 3:00 we came and brought DS7 back to rest and DW and I went down to purchase a picture from the cruise and we wanted to find a Christmas Ornament in the shop. We were able to accomplish both...of course we had to navigate the watch sale on the promenade again!






We got back to the room about 4:00 and finished up a majority of our packing before getting ready for dinner. We would come back after dinner and change to some comfier clothes so we could put our big bags out in the hallway, which is always one of the saddest moments of the cruise.











While we were leaving to head to dinner our stateroom host came by and we asked her for a picture with DS3 she had been “best friends” with him all week, from the moment she asked where he was the first day of the cruise! She remembered his name the whole time! She was awesome during our cruise!






DS3 had to get a little dancing in on the way to dinner too!











*Up Next: A Final Trip to the Dining Room*​


----------



## cstorm65

*Day 8 - Part 4 - A FINAL TRIP TO THE DINING ROOM*

After a great cruise we were approaching the end and everyone was getting sad, but we did have one final trip to the main dining room for dinner! We had loved most every experience we had on this trip in the main dining room, so we were all hoping this last meal would be no different. We did make a quick stop on Deck 4 as we did most nights before dinner! DS7 wore his favorite football jersey this evening...no we aren’t from Ohio, but this kid loves Odell Beckham Jr!
















Once we got set in the main dining room I started off with the Asian Pork Tacos:






The pork filling had really great flavor, but the bun/taco was a little bready and it kind of kept the port hidden a bit. Overall, it was good, but the bun style wasn’t my favorite. DS3 got spaghetti again….oh wait...he got a different entree for the first time all week:











Yes, pizza and french fries! He loved it!






For my entree I got a couple of things, first was the chicken parmesan. It was good, though it was super weird it was served with mashed potatoes as opposed to spaghetti.






I also got another entree of the Tiger Shrimp and it was excellent. The rice, not so much, but the shrimp itself was something I would definitely get again!






And I almost teared up eating Creme Brulee for the last time...it was perfect!






I also tried some cheesecake again and it was great too!






And someone at the table got ice cream...it definitely wasn’t me...wink wink!






After our great dinner we snapped a picture of DS3 with our great server Made! He was fantastic and he made our dinner experiences throughout the week awesome! I mean, I have the same memories of him that I do our our servers on the Disney Cruise we have been on.






The servers also did a song from the stairs in the dining room while we were leaving.






We also got one of these certificates at dinner for sailing over the 4th of July. It was a nice touch!






Well, our final meal in the dining room was over, but we had one final night of fun...what would we do to finish our cruise on a high note?

*Up Next: Does the Watch Sale Ever End?*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 8 - Part 5 - Does the Watch Sale Ever End?*

We had just finished up a great final dinner and had just a few things left to do this evening. First was a walk through the promenade and what do you know...these people were still trying to sell watches!






I mean, you would have thought they had a watch collecting group onboard or something as much as they were trying to sell these things.

Anyway, we were going to head to the show tonight which was called “In the Air” which was some type of combo show with music and acrobatics. We did stop by the room for about 30 minutes to finish last minute packing and set the bags out...disappointing, I know!

Then we headed to the show, but unfortunately when we arrived they were making announcements that due to the weather conditions they couldn’t present the show. Instead a few of the cast members were just going to do some songs they had prepared. We had the boys with us so we thought we’d at least try and enjoy ourselves, but we weren’t sure the show would hold DS3’s attention without the acrobatics.











We made it through about 20 minutes of the show before we decided to find something else to do. There just wasn’t a whole lot to keep the boys interested so we headed back to the promenade.






The boys were exhausted by this point as it was about 9:15 and so was DMiL so they all went on to sleep. DW and I went back through the gift shops and ended up purchasing DW a shirt she had been wanting. She has one of these shirts from a lot of different places, Disney, Universal and now Liberty of the Seas.











Side note...I think they call those shirts “Spirit Jersey’s”, but I’m not sure why. I guess maybe they show your spirit, but they are definitely not a jersey. I don’t know...maybe someone can enlighten me!

DW and I headed off at about 9:45 for a final walk around the upper decks on this cruise.






I also stopped to take a quick picture reading a book for our HS librarian. She loves to do a display after school starts with people reading on their summer vacation. So, I snapped this for her:











We got back to the room at about 10:30 and DW was asleep pretty quick, but I knew I would have trouble sleeping as I had one more thing I wanted to do on this cruise. I headed down for some of this:











Yep, I wanted to have Sorrento’s one final time and let me tell you it was just as good as the first time! I also meandered down to deck three at some point just taking in the ship for one final evening.






Yep, it was time for a sad face because the cruise was coming to an end.






That is it for the final night of the cruise...we only had disembarkation to go, but it was a great cruise. Stay tuned for disembarkation and a little more fun on the drive home.

*Up Next: Goodbye to the Liberty*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 9 - Part 1 - Goodbye to the Liberty*

We awoke for the final time on the Liberty of the Seas and were a little sad our great cruise had come to an end. We got a group 34 disembarkation number which showed to be between 9:45 and 10:00. We weren’t in too big of a hurry to get off as we were dropping DMiL off at the Houston airport for her flight home as she had to be back at work early the next morning. But her flight wasn’t until about 5:00 PM, so we were in no hurry.

As is normally the case for us DS3 was wide awake in no time and as happy as can be while DS7 was...well, not awake!






Those two couldn’t be more different when it comes to waking up in the mornings! I turned on the TV and got a little sad seeing that we were indeed back in Galveston.






Also, I snapped a picture of this in case anyone cruising with Royal Caribbean is interested.






We were out of the room by about 8:00 and were planning on just hitting up the main dining room for breakfast while we waited to disembark. Also, we’d probably use our drink package a few final times for some frappuccinos from the Cafe Promenade.

The boys loved looking at these maps for some reason when we passed them.






We got in line at the dining room at about 8:15 and it was a pretty good sized line. You can see how tired the boys were from our week full of fun:











The line was long and it took us about 15 minutes to get a table, but you can see this place was far from full.






The menu was pretty standard breakfast food for our last meal on the ship.






These boys were tired:






DS3 got a little happier when we started talking about pancakes though!
















DS7 also perked up a bit when some food arrived for him:






We were out by about 9:05 or so and headed back up to the room to grab our carry on bags and make sure one final time that we didn’t leave anything.






We were back down to the lobby by 9:20 and found a few seats at the R Bar while I went and grabbed DW and I one last final frappuccino. It was delicious!






They ended up calling our disembarkation number a little early, at about 9:30 and so we went ahead and headed off the ship one final time as we said our goodbyes to the Liberty of the Seas.











We got to customs by 9:45 and were through and outside of the terminal by 10:00. Which we thought was great since sometimes you hear horror stories of the customs area in Galveston. The boys turned sad when they finally realized our cruise had come to an end. Both of them had such a great time!






DS7 led the way to the shuttle area to head back to where our car was parked!






We were on the shuttle that was waiting for us and were headed off towards the garage by 10:10.






We got back to the car by 10:20 and after getting everything packed up we were off! Come back to see what else we would do with this day to help us with the disappointment of getting kicked off the ship!

*Up Next: Wow, We’re Tired!*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 9 - Part 2 - Wow, We’re Tired!*

As I was getting our bags situated DS7 was getting pretty sad that our time on the ship was over and that we were having to head home, but DW had to talk with him about there will always be another trip to look forward to.






Little did we know this COVID situation would happen and cause a major change to our next Disney trip. If you aren’t following along the re-opening date has caused us to make some changes, but you can head over to our PRE-TRIP REPORT if you want to read more about that. After getting our car out of the parking building we took a nice drive down Seawall Boulevard in Galveston before leaving town.
















Like I said in the last update we were dropping DMiL at the airport on our way through Houston, but her flight wasn’t until like 5:00 PM, so we were going to waste a little time so she wouldn’t have to sit at the airport for too long. Eventually, around 11:30 we took our last look at the ocean before heading back to the mainland.






I didn’t take many more pictures today since we were all so exhausted! We stopped at Buc-ee's again...of course DS3 needed some BBQ chips and then before long he looked like this:






We dropped DMiL at the airport at about 1:00 and we headed off towards Arlington, in the Dallas area at about 1:30. We were staying the night there and then had one last fun activity planned the next day. Now, the traffic from Houston to Dallas is very often thick on the two lane highway, but today it was extra thick. It was a Sunday, in the summer, the weekend after the 4th of July, so it was a big travel day and the roads were packed. It is normally about a three hour drive from Houston to the Dallas Metroplex. Today it took five hours! I mean it was stop and go the entire 170 miles. Somehow I managed the only other picture of the day of the Sam Houston statue in Huntsville:






The boys were tired and DS3 slept for a while, but they actually did ok on the trip despite how slow things moved.

We finally made it to our hotel at about 6:30, a Residence Inn Arlington. The hotel was ok, a little old, but it had a nice amount of space and a separate room for us and the boys to sleep in. We got settled and I ran to Steak and Shake for dinner. It was good, although they didn’t remember we ordered shakes and looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I reminded them. Eventually I got them, but why is the service always so bad at Steak and Shake. I mean we love the food, but the service is always so questionable!

We were done eating by 8:00 and the boys were asleep by 8:15. Again...we were tired! DW and I fell asleep not long after, but we had a little more fun tomorrow before heading home!

*Up Next: We Get Our Theme Park Fix*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 10 - Part 1 - We Get Our Theme Park Fix*

After a long and good night's sleep we didn’t get up until around 8:00, which is late for our boys! We headed down for breakfast at the hotel. The boys enjoyed the fruit loops!











By about 10:00 we left the hotel to head over to get our theme park fix for the vacation at Six Flags Over Texas. We arrived at about 10:10 and had done preferred parking since we get so many of those each year with our membership. It is a great benefit!






We made it to security at about 10:20 and it was fairly crowded for a 10:30 opening, but I’m always amazed at the lack of organization at Six Flags. They had three of 16 metal detectors working for the large rope drop crowd. I just have to remind myself it’s ok...this is not Disney World! Anyways, we made it into the park by about 10:40 and headed off to our first ride.






The boys were guiding us with their maps!











We first walked by what was a brand new dark ride called the Justice League which looked pretty cool. We planned on checking that our after doing our first coaster.






DS7 and I wanted to ride Pandemonium which is one of the spinning coasters, but here is the line.






And it turns out it was closed. Bummer. We went across the path to the new Justice League ride, but it too was closed. Unfortunately this happens a lot at Six Flags...sometimes I think to them a 10:30 park opening means we start testing the rides at 10:30. This has happened to us at multiple Six Flags parks over the last few years. Again, I just remind myself, it’s ok...this is not Disney World!

DS3 took this opportunity to measure himself as we were looking for an attraction that was actually open.






We finally found an open ride for all of us to do together at the Mini Mine Train. The boys loved it!











We even got this awesome picture of the two of them after the ride. How cute are they??











After this we headed back towards the other side of the park...not to many crowds through here. Everyone runs to The Titan, The Texas Giant, or Mr. Freeze first thing which leaves the rest of the park pretty uncrowded for a while.






DS7 stopped us and had decided he wanted to try Runaway Mountain for the first time. We waited about 5 minutes, which is good because this ride usually has a long wait later in the day. It is a coaster that is completely in the dark, so I was wondering how DS7 would do, but he loved it! It is kind of like Space Mountain if I had to compare it to something. The first drop may be a bit bigger than anything on Space, but pretty similar other than that. Anyways, he enjoyed it!






Next we headed over towards the Mexico section of the park. Again, not too bad of crowds so far this morning:






We wanted to ride the bobsled coaster, but when we got over there, guess what??? It was closed...again, the workers must have though 10:30 was when they were supposed to start testing the rides. But hey...this is not Disney World! Let’s just find something else to do for some fun!

*Up Next: Dad, this Looks Like Tomorrowland!*​


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## cstorm65

*Day 10 - Part 2 - Dad, this Looks Like Tomorrowland!*

After finding out the bobsled coaster was closed we headed back to do some other things and found a little spinning and bouncing ride for the boys. Let’s just say DW and I did not think this looked like the ride for us, but the boys seemed to enjoy it.






Then we headed over towards the old faithful antique cars where DW and I took our lives into our own hands.






I mean it doesn’t matter that the cars only go about 0.25 mph does it. We were still pretty brave to let these boys drive us!











The boys loved doing this and we loved watching them sit together!






We headed on through the park and it was time to search out some lunch, but first DS7 got some pictures by the old school house:
















We settled in for what is our favorite place for lunch in this park, JB’s Smokehouse. It isn’t anything special, but the food is usually decent and there is indoor, air conditioned seating, which as you know is an important factor! I got the bacon ranch fries which are actually pretty tasty and it just so happens to be the only thing I got a picture of:






DW got a chicken salad, but she didn’t know it was cold chicken. She like her chicken warm on a salad, so she didn’t eat much of it and the boys enjoyed themselves some chicken strips. All in all it is a solid meal option in the park and did I mention they have some air conditioned seating?

After lunch we headed out in search of some kiddie type rides for DS3. First we found a tea cups type ride...which DW and I were so sad that the boys did by themselves!






Then, we went back to take a spin a miniature version of what for us Disney fans is basically Astrorbiter down at ground level.
















It was a fun ride for the boys and then we stopped at the kids play area on the way out and they have this little train ride. DS7 wasn’t really too interested in this, but he obliged and went with his little brother!











They also have a playground in this area, which I think we let the boys play on for about 10 minutes, but it was getting close to time for a nap for DS3.






We did stop on the way out and get the boys a piece of candy or something that they “needed”.






We also took some obligatory funny hat pictures:






Ummm...DW and I about bought this next hat...we said to each other, “This hat couldn’t be more true!”






After that it was time to head out of the park for a break back at the hotel and some naps. We’ll be back with the rest of our day.

*Up Next: The Wettest Ride in the Wilderness*​


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## Lesley Wake

This park reminds me a lot of Knott's Berry Farm! If you make it out to Disneyland, you should add a day there!



cstorm65 said:


> The boys loved doing this and we loved watching them sit together!


So cute!


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## cstorm65

Lesley Wake said:


> This park reminds me a lot of Knott's Berry Farm! If you make it out to Disneyland, you should add a day there!
> 
> So cute!



Yes!! I actually went to Knott's Berry Farm when I was like 17 and in high school when I was in California with my family. I'm sure a lot has changed since then and to be honest I don't remember much anyway! We will be doing Southern California at some point in the near future and I would definitely have that on the list of things to do!


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## cstorm65

*Day 10 - Part 3 - The Wettest Ride in the Wilderness*

We headed back to the hotel at about 1:15 for a little afternoon break and drove past “Jerry World” on the way or at least that’s what it’s called in this part of the country!






DS3 and DW took a nap as per the usual routine, while DS7 and I went for an afternoon swim. We rested and relaxed until about 5:00 until we headed over for dinner at Dickey’s BBQ, which is a chain of BBQ restaurants in Texas. It’s not the most authentic BBQ restaurant around for sure, but it is always solid food and enjoyable and it was right between our hotel and Six Flags, where we were headed back to. Now, my trip reporting skills are not great to begin with and I actually flipped the switch off during the afternoon break today...I guess I had enough vacationing by this point! I did get a shot of DS3 with his mac and cheese at dinner, but that’s it. I know...big surprise that is what he ordered!






I did get a few pictures of our evening, but not a whole lot. We were back in the park at about 6:00.






And...we saw some fish on the way to do some rides!






We headed over to do the log ride and this always makes me think it is closed.






If you’ve been here though you know they have two tracks and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one running. I don’t know if they shut it down permanently or just use it when it’s super crowded, but anyway DS3 loves himself a good log ride! Reminder though...I turned off the trip reporting button in my brain so no pictures of it!

After the log ride we took a spin on the teacups...the boys just had to do this to me one more time!






I guess it’s better than Disney when we do it on every trip to the Magic Kingdom. After the teacups we headed over for DW and DS3 to take a spin on the Batwing, which for you Disney fans is basically Astroorbiter on the ground and themed like batman!  They had fun though!






While they did that DS7 and myself went for the old faithful Judge Roy Scream...I mean who doesn’t love a good wooden roller coaster. Well, I guess people with bad backs don’t like them, but other than that they it is a fun coaster!






We headed back over to meet up with DW and DS3 around here:






Nope, not doing either of those. I actually like the Batman coaster, but DS7 isn’t tall enough yet. He instead wanted another spin on the Batwing!





















After this we finally were able to head in for a ride on the Justice League Dark Ride which is really similar to the Spiderman ride at Universal Islands of Adventure. Not quite as well done and smooth in the transitions between the “real sets” and the “3D screens”, but a good ride for sure! It is actually a much needed ride at Six Flags because it’s different from coasters.











The only major problem with this ride is the height requirement is around 42”, which seems really high. I mean I don’t really know why as the vehicle doesn’t do much at all and I’m not even sure I remember it having seatbelts, but I may be wrong about that. So, DS3 was disappointed he couldn’t do it. While DS7 and I were reding DW and DS3 found a new little area of the park that had a new ride:






The boys wanted to ride, but it looked like everyone on it was coming off completely soaked, so DW and I didn’t go. Let’s just say they should have the tagline, “The Wettest Ride in the Wilderness” for this one. It is constant water from all directions. Now, the park wasn’t very crowded tonight so the boys had the entire ride to themselves, but they still got soaking wet!
















After this the boys were about ready for bed as it was 8:15 or so, but they wanted candy first! So, we stopped and made that happen before heading home in the morning.






We headed back to the hotel and the boys were asleep in record time.

Again, I had turned off the trip reporting button by this point, so I didn’t take one picture on the way home the next day, but we left out at about 10:15 and made one final stop at Buc-ee's on the drive back to Oklahoma. We made it home all in one piece and that’s a wrap on what was another great vacation and our first with Royal Caribbean. Overall it was a fantastic trip that we will definitely be doing again! I’ll leave you with our family picture we purchased from the ship, which turned out great! I’ll also remind you of our PTR which is going on at the link below:

A NEW TRIP FULL OF NEW MEMORIES...HOPEFULLY IT HAPPENS!




​


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## NancyLuvsMickey

What a great trip!!! Thanks for sharing it with us!! You have a beautiful family and I love the sass in the boys eyes!!! Boy are you going to be in trouble when they're older!!!!    

Happy Late Father's Day too!!!


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## Lesley Wake

You guys are just such a cute family! I hope you have a great trip to Orlando!


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## cstorm65

NancyLuvsMickey said:


> What a great trip!!! Thanks for sharing it with us!! You have a beautiful family and I love the sass in the boys eyes!!! Boy are you going to be in trouble when they're older!!!!
> 
> Happy Late Father's Day too!!!



Thanks for reading along and I agree on our boys! haha



Lesley Wake said:


> You guys are just such a cute family! I hope you have a great trip to Orlando!



Thanks! We are determined to have a great trip no matter what happens!


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## Tinkershelly

Thank you for this thread! I found it in February right before I left for my very first cruise (March 1-8) and I was desperate for pictures onboard the RC ships. Well you had me hooked to check for updates, I became less interested in the ship and more interested in your family trip. Bravo in making so much quality time to be a family together. Here's hoping that everyone can travel again soon.


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## Jules123

Loved your trip report! You have a beautiful family!


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## disneyAndi14

Enjoyed reading about the cruise, what a fun family vacation for you all!


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## cstorm65

Tinkershelly said:


> Thank you for this thread! I found it in February right before I left for my very first cruise (March 1-8) and I was desperate for pictures onboard the RC ships. Well you had me hooked to check for updates, I became less interested in the ship and more interested in your family trip. Bravo in making so much quality time to be a family together. Here's hoping that everyone can travel again soon.





Jules123 said:


> Loved your trip report! You have a beautiful family! ❤





disneyAndi14 said:


> Enjoyed reading about the cruise, what a fun family vacation for you all!



Thanks to everyone for reading along and commenting! It has been great to re-live the adventure. Sorry I've been gone a couple of weeks as we were on vacation. It's been an adventure for sure just getting a vacation of some type in over the summer. I just wrote an update on the PTR for what was supposed to be a Universal vacation and it has a link to a video of our vacation we just got back off of which was our 3rd try for this summer. But...we will be back traveling in the future! Here is our PTR: https://www.disboards.com/threads/a...ptr-updated-7-19.3801287/page-4#post-62152257


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