This final post of our cruise is all of the pictures on the cruise ship that we haven't talked about yet including the last couple days on the cruise as we sailed home. We took a lot of pictures through the week in front of the huge Christmas tree on Deck 5. Here's one we took with everyone from our five families. The kids loved having friends their ages and with five families, there was bound to be one or two people somewhere close to your age.
Here's a picture of the older teenager group: Ellie, Brynly, AJ, Abby, Brynn, Tessa, and Logan. They did everything together and even met new teenagers on the cruise that they roamed around with, ate meals with, hot tubbed with, and went to evening activities with. They loved it. I also wanted a picture with just my family in front of the tree, so we were able to do that one morning before we got off the ship on one of the port days.
It was also fun knowing so many people on the cruise so you always seemed to be passing someone you knew as you walked around the ship. Sometimes I'd make them stop so I could get a picture. There was a star lounge right below our deck of rooms where the kids would go to play games in the evening or join in during some trivia or singing games. I took pictures of kids whenever I caught a group of them together.
At one of the highest points of the ship, you could look over all of the pools and other open decks. One of the parents took this picture in the evening with the moon behind them as the kids were roaming. It's Nolan, Ella, and Taryn. I also took a picture of Taryn and me while we waited for Tyler one night. There was a little parlor/waiting room with blown glass flowers and sculptures on the wall that I really loved. While we waited for Tyler to find us, I told Taryn I wanted a picture to remember the cool wall and she was happy to be in the picture with me.
We did do a lot of waiting around with so many families whenever we tried doing something all together. As we waited for everyone to show up, I'd get pictures of the group that was there since there were usually a lot of people together. I liked the group pictures.
Karaoke was one of the favorite evening activities. They had a lounge specifically used for karaoke each night and whenever it was dedicated to be a kids karaoke night, our kids rushed over there after dinner. The first night, everyone stayed to watch, but after that only the most dedicated singers skipped out on other evening activities to head back for another round of karaoke.
Taryn was one of those dedicated singers. Whenever she heard it was karaoke night for kids, she left dinner early to get on the list as soon as possible. I even missed her first performance because she sang very first. Another night during the week, she sang by herself and then she talked Teagan into singing a number with her. I was so proud of how confident and brave she was to go up on stage in front of a lot of strangers and sing by herself or with a friend. She did amazing!
Abby was another dedicated karaoke singer. She sang most nights, usually a solo, but she did do a duet with Tessa one night. I love her voice and so did everyone else. She got a lot of compliments every time she sang. Some of those compliments even came from strangers who were other dedicated karaoke singers and heard her sing multiple times. My dad sang a few times as well and did a great job. He sang at the regular karaoke lounge, but also gave the karaoke with a live band a shot too. He's used to singing with his jazz/rock band, so it wasn't anything new for him. I was walking towards my room one night when I heard someone singing and I thought to myself, "that sounds like my dad," so I walked down to the star lounge and it WAS my dad. So I stayed and listened to him finish the song and took a picture as he sang. He's an awesome musician.
Swimming was a big part of the cruise as well whether it was in the pools or the hot tubs. Here's Aubrey's group of friends that she hung out with the most. It's Ella, Caroline, Sam, Aubrey, and Nolan. She also hung out with the twins a lot, I just didn't catch them in many of the pictures. There were 3 or 4 hot tubs on the pool deck and they were always filled with kids.
The teenagers ended almost every night in the hot tubs. I would occasionally catch them there during the day like in this first picture. One of the other moms caught them all in the hot tub in the evening and shared this second picture. I think that's how the teenagers met most of their friends. Or that was the meeting up spot since phones didn't work on the ship. They all knew specific times that they could find each other at the hot tubs.
The elevators on both sides of the ship were glass elevators so you could see into the middle of the ship along the promenade. One day, it worked out that our entire family was in one elevator together, so I took a picture. We loved having my parents there with us and it was fun when we all happened to be together. That didn't happen very often since the kids were always off with their friends and we even had separate rooms since two of the girls stayed in a room with my parents. We were luckily down the same hallway, but we did not have rooms next door to each other, so it was rare that we'd all be getting to the elevator at the same time, which is why I love this picture so much.
There was a huge theater where the main evening events took place. On the nights that we wanted to attend, we had a section on the right side that we always met at so we could see the show together and have enough room for all five families. Throughout the week, we saw a comedian, a singer, a goucho/cowboy, and a dance/acrobatics performance. They were all very good shows.
Food was a huge part of the cruise. You can find food anywhere, anytime. The kids' favorite spot was the pizza place. It was right outside of our rooms and it was right next to the huge Christmas tree. It was the perfect meeting place whenever you needed to meet up with other families and it was the first place you looked when you needed to find someone. You could get pizza, salads, and dessert any time of the day, so the kids were always stopping by for a slice.
Besides the little tables outside the pizza shop, they also had tables and booths inside. You could usually find the larger teenager group back there eating and/or playing cards or games. Tessa hung out with Ellie the most out of the teenagers and she met this friend, Marley, on the cruise and they did a lot of stuff together too. They found us for a minute at the pizza place, so I took a picture of them before they ran off to find the rest of the teenagers.
We met up at the pizza place our final night to go over the fun parts of the week and give out silly awards which is a tradition in the Scott family. This was most of our families and it was fun to have final hurrah all together the night before we left the cruise. We really did have a great time even with all of the different personalities and the bad weather at the beginning of the week.
Another big food spot was the Windjammer which was where the buffets were held. We did most of our breakfasts and lunches here. They had set times that they were open for meals, but once you were in, they had so many choices for food and a ton of tables that overlooked the back of the ship so you could watch the ocean and waves from the ship as you ate. There were a couple really large round tables that the teenagers liked to use. We found them with their friends to take some pictures.
The final dinner spot was our restaurant for our reserved dinners. We had reserved tables and we sat at the same one every night. We were able to schedule before the cruise to have all five of our families at tables near each other. That way, we ended up sitting by age instead of by family. Tyler and I usually sat with my parents and occasionally some other adults or kids sat with us depending on the night. The teenagers always sat together and the middle and little kids sat at a huge table together. You always had the same waiters, so by the end of the week, they knew you really well and would even bring out drinks without you ordering it if you always wanted the same thing. The food menus were the best. You could pick whatever you wanted from the menu even if it was multiple items or double of the same thing. The food was always delicious and it was one of my favorite parts of the day. The kids loved it too. They loved trying new foods but also being able to get their favorite dishes or desserts each night. The food was the best!
Some of the nights on the cruise were deemed formal, so we dressed up a bit. In between dinner and our nightly activities, I was able to catch these teens by the elevators where there was a bridge that went towards the middle of the ship and main promenade. I had them take a picture and they decided to do this "prom pose." I thought it was really cute.
There were huge wrap around stairs at the front of the ship that went from the main theater to the promenade right by the huge Christmas tree. While Tessa was dressed up, we tried getting a picture of her on the stairs. It was really hard to find a time when there weren't people walking up and down the stairs, so the picture didn't turn out as good as we hoped, but Tessa still looks beautiful. Tyler and I dressed up in our Hawaiian outfits for the last formal night, so my parents took a picture of us at the dinner table. Tyler purchased a drink card so he could get unlimited drinks during the cruise. He always got cherry sprite at dinner, but throughout the days and evenings, we were always getting virgin Pina colada drinks or strawberry or mango smoothies. They were really yummy. The girls took turns using Tyler's card whenever they passed a bar or lounge to get their own fun drinks or smoothies.
Because we had reserved tables at dinner, there was a family at a nearby table that had two kids who always seemed to be watching our large group of teenagers and kids. Their son really loved the teenage boys and he finally talked his parents into letting him come over to their table to say hi. He thought it was the best thing ever when the teenage boys talked to him. We ended up leaving the dining hall together and he wanted pictures with all of his new friends. He was a charmer and actor. He knew how to pose for pictures and he kept asking the teenagers to be in his pictures. Here he is with his sister and some of the teenagers.
Then as the rest of our kids showed up, we had to take more pictures. Our kids would ask how they wanted to pose, so they'd come up with these cute poses and then everyone would do that pose for the picture. They were having a really fun time with it.
One of my favorite parts of the entire cruise week was when we decided to mob sing as we walked through the cruise ship. It was Christmastime, so we all met up and randomly started singing Christmas songs as we walked through the ship. We did it on the fly one day when some of the kids started singing so others started joining in. We got so many smiles and claps that we planned to officially do it again on Christmas Eve. On that night, we sang for probably 20 minutes as we walked through the main halls of the ship, up the stairs, around the pool decks, and down the stairs and through the Windjammer buffet. Everyone cheered us on or sang along and some of the workers even pulled out their phones to video us as we passed by singing. It was so fun. I really loved it.
We had another attempt at taking pictures of our entire group. We tried using the wrap around stairs on the back side of the Christmas tree. We really had to squeeze everyone in, but the angle wasn't the best.
Then we made it down the stairs and used them to make sure we could fit everyone in. We wanted a picture of everyone in our nice clothes on the formal night. It was fun to see everyone together in our formal dress with the Christmas tree behind and above us.
On Christmas Eve, we pulled out our blow up Christmas trees and opened our traditional Christmas Eve gifts. We did this with the Kasallis family because our gifts turned out to be matching Christmas pajamas. We sang our family night song together and then opened our gifts all at the same time. We wore our pjs that evening as we played some final games before heading to bed to await Christmas morning.
Santa even found us and our tree on the cruise ship. Here's Taryn with the Santa gifts and stockings that were in our room when we woke up. I went over and found Tessa and Aubrey (who slept in Grandma and Grandpa's room) and brought them back so we could open up presents.
We even took a picture of our family Christmas morning with our Christmas tree in our room. They are very tiny cabins with just enough room for the beds and a chair. Two of the beds are even above the main bed like bunk beds, but we squeezed in to be able to open gifts together. Tyler and I took our picture with Audrey and Tony by the big Christmas tree in our matching pajamas.
We spent the rest of Christmas Day enjoying the pools and water slides. My kids tried the FlowRider wave rider machine. I just watched and took pictures. Tessa gave it a try but didn't tell her helper that it was her first time. She did pretty good considering she didn't have any instruction, but she was a little upset that she didn't get a longer time to try like most of the beginners did. She didn't try it again after that. Aubrey stood in line multiple times and took multiple turns, so she eventually was able to work up to her knees on the board. She thought it was a lot fun.
Taryn tried it multiple times as well. She only biffed it a couple of times, but for the most part, she was able to ride the wave for a long time. I was proud of them for trying something new and not giving up after getting splashed in the face a ton or wiping out.
Taryn and I did the rock wall climb. It was my first time, but Taryn's second so she was a pro. She went really high on her kid-friendly wall. I was so proud of her for not being scared of heights or the difficulty of finding a path to climb. She did so well! Lisa gave the wave rider a try, but Audrey and I just watched. We did get a picture together while we watched our kids ride the waves.
I did go on the tube rides and slides. The lines were a little long, but they moved quickly. The individual slides were fun but not too fast, so the kids didn't think they were the best. The tube ride was a double rider slide and the kids liked mixing it up for that one. The hard part was there was a weight restriction. You had to be over a certain weight to ride at all, but you couldn't be under or over a certain weight together. So two little kids couldn't ride together, so a lot of the littler kids had to get one of us adults to ride with them. I went on the ride a couple of times with Taryn or Aubrey and it was pretty fun. You go through some tubes and then shoot out onto a large curved slide so it looks like you're going to fly out over the boat and into the ocean. It was a little scary the first couple times I went on the ride, but after finally realizing that even though it looks like we going to hit the top edge as you go shooting up the side, you never actually reach the top wall.
We took a walk to the very front tip of the boat on our last morning on the ship. Tyler had been out there a couple of mornings to see the sunrise and watch the boat head out to sea. It was right by the helipad too, so he thought that was pretty cool. It was closed due to high winds when we had tried to go up there a couple of times, so we were lucky the weather was good enough that last morning. We had a great time on the cruise and would do it again in the future. It was a great family vacation.
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