Bahamas Cruise - Perfect Day at Coco Cay

Coco Cay is the private island in the Bahamas owned by Royal Carribean. The island was full of beach space with chairs and umbrellas. Most of the food on the island was free. We got off of the boat early because we wanted to take some family pictures on the beach, before they got crowded. Tamma got off of the boat with us so she was able to take the pictures. We just used our phones, so nothing fancy. The colors were great, but we overlooked the lighting and the shadows it would create on our faces. There was also a floating mat that made it into the background of a lot of the pictures.

We also wanted to take Alyssa's senior pictures on the beach, so I took a bunch of pictures of her while the others changed into their swimsuits and got into the water.

Ashley found this conch shell right away, with something still living in it. She wanted to take it home, but knew the creature inside would not survive.

After Alyssa got done with pictures, we changed and went into the water. It was cold, but not miserable. There was a sand bar a little way out into the water that we swam out to. It was covered in seaweed, that never ended, so Alyssa tried to walk across it and we think she got stung by a jellyfish because the bottom of her foot started to sting a lot. So we had to go find the first aid station on the island where they sprayed her foot with vinegar. This seemed to fix the stinging, so we went back to the South Beach where we had grabbed a bunch of chairs. We grabbed some food and by the time we finished, the rest of the Knudsen's had showed up. We went back into the water with them.
The day was super relaxing. The waves were pretty nonexistent, so the kids got bored with the water. Connor and I played some sand volleyball on the courts next to our chairs.

The others cheered us on.

We walked around the island in the afternoon to see what the other beaches had to offer. Alyssa finally got her fancy drink

We looked at the souvenir huts.

Danny took the boys back to the ship midday. Ashley and Tamma followed them. The rest of us stayed on the island as late as we could.

It really was a perfect day. So much fun!

Bahamas Cruise: Nassau

In the months and weeks leading up to the cruise, we had a real struggle trying to decide what to do in Nassau. I had researched all the possibilities through the cruise line and outside of the cruise line. We knew that most people said that the best thing to do in Nassau was to spend the day at the Atlantis Resort. But we had a really hard time just jumping right on board with that plan since it would be over $200 dollars a person for a few hours on resort property. I also researched a lot about the resort and the water park there and was really worried that the lines would be long and the resort would be crowded and it would just be a miserable experience. We also wanted our kids to experience what life in a foreign country is like and to try some of the local cuisine. so we were pushing for renting a 6 seater ATV that was street approved and just driving around the island to explore. The Knudsen's still wanted to go to Atlantis. Our kids really wanted to be with their cousins so there was a week or 2 of not knowing what to do. And then, there was a news report a couple of weeks before the cruise saying that the city of Nassua had had 18 murders by gangs in the area this year (almost one a day!) The city and country had was raising the travel advisory level for Americans telling us to be very cautious and to cancel travel plans if at all possible. We knew that safety was our top priority that day and renting an ATV to get away from the ship crowds suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. It also seemed like a bad idea to take a taxi to Atlantis on our own. So we booked with the cruise line and hoped for a good experience.

They got us off of the ship right away, but then we stood in this line for a long time while they collected our tickets and waited for the shuttles. Alyssa and Claire, once again, showed up matching that day.

The shuttle ride was about 20 minutes through some crazy traffic and roads (we were kind of glad we didn't have to try and drive through it on our own). Once we got off of the shuttles, we had to wait in another line to get our wristbands. We found out while in this line, that we needed to fill out an online waiver for each member of our family. The wifi was questionable and this took much longer than we would have liked. 

We were happy to finally have our wristbands and enter the resort. The walk to the aquadventure was quite long. Plus we wanted to stop at a few fun things along the way. We had to take a picture in this swing, especially since it was Valentine's Day.

We could see right away that it was unreasonable to stay all together. We split off into 3-4 groups after the first slide, a water coaster. The lines were not too bad all day. Our biggest disappointment was that half of the slides were not even open the whole time we were there. There were supposed to be 3 water coasters and a body slide on one slide tower and 5 body slides on the other tower. Only 1 water coaster was open on the one tower. And the other tower only had 3 slides open. The kids were happy that the 2 slides that went under the shark tank were, at least, open. 

   

The other cool feature of the water park was the "not so lazy" river. It had a number of sections with waves and rapids which made it a little more exciting that your normal lazy river. 

After we had ridden all of the slides a couple of times and made the full loop on the river float, we got the boys fancy drinks and walked out to the beach. It was beautiful.

The boys splashed a little while in the waves and then we headed back for more slides. By the way, after the first slide, we never saw any of the others from our group, including Alyssa and Ashley, except for a few minutes in the hot tub. We were glad that we had come up with a meeting place and time.

Two more slides finally opened up about 20 minutes before we had to head out. Danny, the boys, and I had unfortunately been in the wrong tower when they opened up because the really fun slide was in the other tower and we chose to ride a slow windy slide instead and it took the rest of our time. The boys were quite sad when they heard their sisters and their cousins talk about how fun that slide was.

As we walked out, we stopped for a bit to look at the aquarium tanks. There were some fun underwater Atlantis themed things in the water.

We also stopped and got some pictures on this big chair.

The hotel lobby had some really cool sculptures and paintings.

On our way back to the ship. We were glad that we did not get murdered during our visit to Nassau. LOL

Here is our group in front of the outdoor pools. There were a lot of cool sea animals in them, including sea turtles, sting rays, sharks, eels, and other fish.

We were one of the last ones on the shuttle bus, getting there right before the time they said the last shuttles would go back to the ship. We got to see a motorcycle gang do some wheelies next to our bus during the drive. There were some shops on the pier that we stopped and looked for souvenirs at on our way back. Overall it was a good day. The kids had fun, even though we were a little disappointed in all of the closed slides. The resort was pretty and the beaches there were amazing. We probably would have enjoyed the theme even more if we knew anything about the lost city of Atlantis. 

 

Bahamas Cruise - Day 1-2 - Around the Ship

Our cruise was a 4 night/5 day cruise to the Bahamas out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. We cruised with Royal Carribean. They did not have any rooms big enough to fit our whole family, so we had to book 2 different rooms. The kids lucked out with their ocean view balcony room. Danny and I got stuck with a balcony over this outdoor park on the 8th deck. 't end up going out there much because it was a bit awkward facing all of the other cruisers balconies. We would have much preferred an ocean view. The first 2 days of the cruise were spent on the shop doing all kinds of fun activities. Here are some of the things we did.

The dinners: Formal night, Carribean Night, or just in regular clothes. It was always fun to meet up together for dinner together in the dining room. There was a mix up with getting us all seated at the same table, so we had to request a change on the first night and ended up at this big round table just inside the doors of the dining room. Our waiters did great with the last-minute change.

The Pool and Hot Tub: The kids spent hours at the pool and hot tub. It didn't help that this is also where the ice cream was located, too. They must have eaten over 10 ice cream cones a day.

The towel animals: We all loved our towel creations on this cruise. My favorites were the love birds on Valentine's Day and the bat wearing my sunglasses.

Flow rider: I think almost everyone in the group tried the flow rider at least once. The kids all tried it multiple times. They started with having you move from side to side and front to back. Then you got to lift your arms and move. Then they would have you get up on your knees and move around, and last was the one leg up other one kneeling or the sitting position on the board. Most people wiped out before getting to those last 2.

The zip line: I think we all tried the zip line, as well. Except for Tyler and Camden. They were not heavy enough. It wasn't that exciting. It just went from one side of the ship to the other over an opening that went down like 10 decks.

The Rock wall: located on the opposite side of the ship from all of the other activities was the rock wall. The kids tried climbing them a couple of times.

Sports Court: They had a variety of sports activities and competitions on their sports court. There was basketball, pickleball, soccer, and volleyball. Connor and I entered the adult volleyball competition. We rigged it so that we ended up on the same team, team #3 out of 3 teams. I thought we would not have a good team because we got all of the late comers. But we ended up winning the whole thing, which consisted of beating both teams once. The old guy on our team was our favorite teammate. He was like 70 and it made his day to be on the winning team. Connor and the guy in red were probably the reason we won. The red guy stayed in the setter position the whole time which gave us lots of opportunities for good hits, especially Connor.

  

Some other things that we did that I do not have pictured: we ate A LOT of pizza at this pizza place on deck 5. The boys watched the Mario Movie during the volleyball competition in a theater room. We played 1 High any chance we got. We ate A LOT. We played ping pong. We watched a couple of shows. We missed out on ice skating, mini golf, and a ride on the carousel (for the boys). We just never got around to those things. Mostly, we just enjoyed hanging out with the Knudsen's. We were shocked how long it took us to connect with them on Day 2. But then we learned that the kids slept until almost noon and Becky was at the gym and then getting cleaned up for the day. None of them were answering their room phones or the multiple knocks at their doors.

Florida Day 3 - Disney's Animal Kingdom

 We decided to do a day at Disney with the Knudsen's. We decided to go to Animal Kingdom because it is the least busy of the parks. Unfortunately, it was still a weekend and the National Cheer competition was going on that weekend. So we opened the park and ran straight to the Avatar ride. It was still an hour and a half wait. And the wait times only got worse. The avatar line was really well decorated so between cousins and the entertainment in the line, it went pretty quickly.

 The ride was amazing and everyone was so happy coming off of it.

Our next stop was the safari ride. We had heard that you want to go early because that is when the animals are most active. The line was about an hour and everyone was a bit disappointed that we waited an hour for a safari ride. And then the driver got upset with someone in the back that kept standing up, so about halfway through the ride he didn't stop anymore and seemed a little more rushed in his explanations. Later in the day, the safari ride only had a 5 minute wait. We totally should have waited to do it later.

After the safari, we walked through the little trail near the exit that had more animals to look at. However, our legs were already tired by this point so there were a lot of complaints from the group. The mom's tried to talk the rest of the group into going to "The Lion King" show, to give our legs a rest, but the kids all vetoed the show, and any other show we might think of taking them to that day. They were all eager to get to Everest, the only roller coaster in the park. So we headed there, hoping that if they got that ride out of their minds, then they would be more willing to try the other stuff. 

Everest was a BIG mistake. The line claimed to be 80 minutes, if I remember right. But we think it must have broken down because there was a 15 minute stretch when the line did not move AT ALL. We literally sat down in the line and didn't need to move for 15 minutes. By the time we finally got on the ride, we were so disappointed with the 2 hour wait that the ride did not seem worth it. It was cool, but not 2 hours of waiting cool.  Claire and Alyssa purposely posed in a very unimpressed way for the picture. LOL

After Everest, we headed to the last main attraction, Dinosaur. It had the shortest line of the day to that point at around 20 minutes. The ride was a little outdated and Becky later got a kick out of my and Danny's unimpressed faces in the picture compared to Alyssa's scared face.

By this point, we had done everything, without doing the shows, besides a little slow boat ride in the Avatar land. But the line was so long (75 minutes) when we got there, that most of us vetoed it. We decided to go eat instead. After dinner, we split up. Becky, Jake, Connor, Alyssa, and Claire went to the river float ride. Danny, Ashley, Tamma, Tyler, Camden, and I decided to go back to the Dinosaur ride which claimed to have a 15 minute wait on the app. By the time we got there, the line had gone up to 45 minutes so we went back to Everest instead. It was a much better experience the 2nd time through. The 60 minute line only ended up being 20 minutes. The river float group got done with their ride as we were heading back onto Everest for a second ride, so they joined up with us. We ended up riding it one more time all together and then we headed over to Avatar for the last ride of the night.

Here are some other pictures from the day.

Alyssa and Claire were twinning it.

In the line for Dinosaur

Also in the line for dinosaur

Some pictures of Ashley and Tamma.

We were exhausted by the time we got off of Avatar. The park was closed, so we headed out. We took this picture on the way out. We should have done it on the way inside because the lighting was all wrong. 

It was a fun and tiring day. The kids all had a lot of fun together. Animal Kingdom was a little less Disney-ish than other Disney parks we have been to. My biggest disappointment of the day was that it was sooo crowded. And with so little to do in the park and with kids that wouldn't go to shows, it just meant a lot of time standing in long lines and very little time actually riding rides. But at least there was a lot of bonding time while standing in line.