We boarded the cruise ship in New Orleans so we briefly got to walk around the French Quarter and even saw Bourbon street! That is one crazy place, to say the least. Ryan and I decided it is definitely a place to vacation without the kids in the future! Luckily my parents offered to walk the kids back to the hotel after dinner while Ryan and I walked down Bourbon Street - good call! It wasn't even after dark yet and it was shocking!
The next day we got on board the Norwegian Spirit and proceeded to be stuffed and pampered! I have been on several cruises prior to being married and becoming a Mommy, but this was my first with kids. Let me start off by saying we had an amazing time and I would recommend a cruise vacation to anyone who would stand around talking to me long enough to get on the subject. I LOVE cruising! I think it is a fabulous way to see a lot and get a good value. It is not by any means inexpensive but you do get a lot for what you spend. We had excellent service, a great room steward who cleaned up our room twice a day and more food than anyone should be able to eat in one week (yes, it was excellent!). We also had great access to a fun kids program that my girls loved and we took advantage of as often as we could and not feel guilty about.
Our ports of call were Costa Maya, Roatan, Belize City, and Cozumel. I had a great time at all of these places and they are all completely different! My favorite place was Roatan, Honduras. It was a beautiful place and we had a great day that included ziplining in the jungle canopy, visiting with and holding many different animals and even a stop for a few hours at a beautiful beach with gorgeous water. Costa Maya was stinking HOT and we saw some really great Mayan Ruins there, but it was HOT, Hot, HOT. Cozumel was fun - we went on a submarine that took us 110 feet down to see the coral reef. That was pretty cool! Belize - eh, not so impressed but maybe if we had done something different we would have enjoyed it more.
As you have read, our days were super busy. The nights on board the ship were great too! The entertainment on this cruise was awesome - they had a great Second City comedy troupe, awesome dancers and singers. We all really enjoyed it and even had a celebrity sighting - French Stewart from 3rd Rock From the Sun was on his honeymoon and performed with 2nd city in a show. I was backstage with him and got my picture taken. Pretty cool.
So with all of these great things, I have to admit, there were some downsides too. Namely the girls made the trip stressful for me. I don't know about you, but I tend to get stressed out when my kids are out of their element. We had different schedules and other people to try and keep up with and meet and the girls did great, but I was working my tail off behind the scenes to make sure that happened. I think I need to be able to just go with the flow more and not care so much about what other people think about me and my kids. My mind tends to jump to conclusions and think the worst and that other people are thinking those things as well. I mentioned this to my mom, that I was worrying about what they were thinking about us and how the girls were behaving. She laughed and said they weren't thinking that at all. That made me wonder if I was possibly wrong about everyone else - that maybe they weren't really caring if we were a few minutes late to dinner or if we said we just didn't want to do something that it would be ok. We had a lot to deal with and I think it all turned out ok - we had a good time, didn't kill the girls or each other and I learned a valuable lesson: to be a little more laid back on my vacation!
I did have that in my mind a little more by the time we got to my aunt and uncle's house and I had a great time there. I didn't have anything planned, no where to be and no expectations of me or my family. Even when our flight got canceled in Houston we had to rent a car and drive 5 hours to Dallas to make it on a flight that night, I simply just went with the flow. I think this should be a little bigger part in my life - someone else being in charge and responsible.
Now we are home and I did the after vacation grocery shopping trip (ouch!) and am catching up with all the laundry (yuck!) and all that's left of the vacation is the hangover and the scrapbooking of all the wonderful memories we created! Happy Summer!
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