Dan and I went on our first cruise more than 10 years ago and really enjoyed it. We wanted to cruise again, and being in San Antonio meant we were close to a port! We decided to just pick a date and invite whoever wanted to join us. After a year+ of planning and different variations of passengers, my mom, brother and the four of us set sail on a Caribbean cruise at the beginning of January!
It may take a few posts to get it all documented, but documenting is one of the big reasons I went back to blogging. More work, more payoff. :)
In this post I want to share the things that happened on the ship and even before we set sail. We met up in Galveston, TX on Saturday January 4th. Our hotel was right on the beach, and we had a fun evening playing games, eating ice cream before dinner, and then ending up at IHOP having breakfast for dinner!
Our hotel is in the middle
Eating ice cream on the balcony, watching the sunset. We bought a tub of Blue Bell ice cream only to realize it wouldn't fit in the freezer, so we had to eat it quick before it melted!
Not that you can really tell, but we set up our Switch and played some JackboxTV games all together
Sunset views
The hotel next to us had a parking spot for this helicopter. Good thing I got a picture because when we came out of IHOP it was gone!
The next morning it was nice to take our time and have some breakfast, get packed up and over to the port. Our hotel offered parking and a shuttle as part of our stay. The process to get checked in to the ship wasn't too terrible. My only grumpy moment was that we couldn't check the water bottles we had brought, we had to carry them until we could get into our rooms. So we had 3 12-pack of water bottles to lug around for awhile.
Playing Connect 4 in the lobby while waiting for the shuttle
On the shuttle to the ship!
Our home away from home! Liberty of the Seas- Royal Caribbean
This is one of many posed photos that the cruise ship loved to take. We decided to purchase this one because it was a great shot of us all in our Cruise Vacay shirts that I made!
It's funny, one of the first things we did on the ship was eat. That's what cruising is all about, right? I say it's funny, because one of the last things we did on the ship was eat! Haha...
After having some lunch and wandering the ship for a bit, we checked to see if our rooms were ready!
Here's some pics from Dan and my room, and the boys' room.
View from the balcony while still in port in Galveston
Loved having a balcony and spending time just watching the water go by.
The boys had an interior room across the hall, but to our surprise it had a window that looked out to the center of the ship where they had an awesome Promenade deck full of shops and restaurants and entertainment. The boys loved loved loved having their own space and a view to the people below!
View out the window of the boys' room
Platinum Theater! We saw many awesome shows here
This is a view from the theater looking up towards the Promenade
Free ice cream all day long!! I could go for a strawberry and vanilla cone right now.
Me plugging my ears during the mandatory safety briefing!
View from Kevin and Mom's balcony
The boys didn't waste too much time before getting in the pool! It was a little cold for me, so I stayed in the hot tub
Say goodbye to Texas!
So I should add that these pictures come from all 6 of us, including the boys! We put them all together in a shared iphone album so I could document the trip from all views, not just mine. You want to know what the boys to the most pictures of? The food! Every evening we got to eat in a fancy dining room and choose from a set menu an appetizer, main course and desert. We had a waiter and busboy that took great care of us, and I think it was one of our favorite memories from the cruise. My kids, who rank among some of the pickiest eaters alive, tried some of the craziest stuff, ate it, enjoyed it, and even ordered it again and again!
Escargot became a quick favorite appetizer choice for both Cade and Alex!
Doesn't he look delighted?
Fried Calamari
Royal Chocolate Cake
Delicious cheesecake
Don't worry, there'll be lots more food pictures to come. Here are some awesome sunset pictures that Kevin got from the first night.
Alex selfies make me smile
Not sure why there's a car on the ship, but it looked awesome!
Live music on the Promenade- this guy was really really good!
Not quite 24/7 pizza, but pretty close. I mean he'd already had a huge dinner, but why not pizza too?
Kevin on the Promenade. It was such a great hangout spot!
You can see the windows to the left and right, those are people's rooms, like the boys.
And that's just the first day! The next two days were sea days, so we had a lot of time to explore the ship and participate in the myriad of activities available.
Honduras, we're headed your way!
Cute moment on the balcony
So check this out, there's an ice skating rink on the ship!! Cade had recently gone ice skating for the first time with the church youth, so he was excited to do some open skate time while we were at sea. Not gonna lie, those skates HURT, but what a unique thing to do while cruising! AND the performers on the ship put on a fantastic ice skating show. So cool!
Another area we frequented was the game room! This spot was definitely popular, and it was so awesome to see so many families getting together just to play games and spend time together.
Ice Skating AND rock climbing? No wonder Cade had a fantastic vacation!
He even did a competition toward the end of the cruise with all the teens and got 3rd place!
Tuesday night was formal night, and while they had multiple formal nights, we decided as a group to get really gussied up for the first one and make an evening of it :)
Don't we look good?
Dan and I out on our balcony before heading to dinner
Selfies in the hallway!
Look up!
All together at dinner
Can't forget cool dude Cade
Cade selfies are quite entertaining
More food pics!
This was some kind of sea puff pastry
Can't forget the escargot!
You never quite knew how your food would be when you picked it off the menu. Cade ordered the pork shank, and it was HUGE! And extremely delicious. We were all a bit jealous.
Kevin, the nature photographer!
Often after dinner we'd go back to our rooms to change or get something, and we'd find our rooms all clean and dressed with towel animals! Super creative
Here's the captain! We even got some delicious cake! More food!
Spaghetti Bolognese
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Chocolate hazelnut crunch thingy
Mini golf on the deck!
One afternoon we made our way as far forward on the ship as we could!
We were near this Carnival ship a good amount of our cruise
Random dinner pics!
This may not look like much, but it was by far the best dessert we had the whole week. Underneath that ice cream was a gooey chocolate cake, brownie thing. We kept hoping they'd have it again, but no such luck.
Karaoke! Dan and I did some Karaoke late at night with the adults, but they also offered family karaoke in the early evenings. Alex and I did an Imagine Dragons song together.
And Dan might kill me for this, but at the piano bar/sing-a-long thing the pianist put Dan on the spot for a song, and he rocked it. Unfortunately he stole my phone part way through so you don't get much video proof, but you get some!!
Well that's all for now! Check back for more later!!
