This pretty much sums up our vacation.
Tired, uncooperative children, never sleeping in past 7am, hand foot and mouth disease, and the list goes on. Okay, maybe it wasn't all bad, but it was certainly memorable.
We started our trip when the alarm clock sounded at 4am, and piled everyone into the car to the airport. American Airlines charges $15 to check each bag, so we decided that we could do a five day cruise with just carry on bags, so Ryan was loaded down like a pack mule, and I looked like Old Mother Hubbard with the kids. We flew to Miami to jump aboard our ship. The flight was uneventful, finding a cab driver to take us to the pier was a little trickier since we didn't bring the car seats for the 15 minute drive to the port. At least embarkation went fairly quickly, since we were all pretty frazzled after a long day of travel. Once on board, we got the girls tucked in for a nap. Their bunks were a bit tight, but they didn't seem to mind. Everything is tiny on a ship.
Actually, we reserved two rooms with connecting door, and that worked out perfectly. We bolted the door to the kids room and just kept the connecting door cracked while they were sleeping. Casey's crib was wedged between the closet and the bathroom, and the girls had their own twin beds. Our rooms even had windows, so that we had some sense of night and day.
After getting a nap in, we were ready to find some food. I think that is one of the main reasons people come on cruises. We were on Norwegian Cruise Lines, home of Freestyle Cruising. We took that to heart and did meals a bunch of different ways during the cruise. We had some family dinners in the main dining room, so nights we fed the girls early in the buffet line and Ryan and I (plus Casey asleep in a stroller) went to dinner on our own later, we mixed up breakfast and lunch as well with some sit down and some buffet. The buffet worked really well, until the ship instituted additional sanitation measures due to a reported outbreak of a GI virus. Here is my band of misfits practicing their modeling faces...Blue Steel while waiting for dinner to arrive.
We had a day at sea before pulling into Grand Cayman. So took the girls for a swim and let them play in the kids club for a few hours. Ryan and I did some trivia and beer tasting where we walked away with 1 quart beer steins and both won t-shirts. Casey was too young for the kids club so he was a long for the ride, literally, we borrowed a little umbrella stroller and Ava push him all around the ship. We also saw a great show that night with the ship band and dance troupe. All three kids were amazed. I think it is the longest I have every seen the 3 of them sit still.
Our first port of call was Grand Cayman Island. The girls have been asking for the last 6 months to go to the beach, so they were very exited to get off the ship. There isn't a deep water port on that island so we had to use tenders to get to shore. Even that didn't curb their enthusiasm. Casey was still along for the ride, his mode of transportation just changed. He switched from stroller to backpack.
They had a blast on the beach, building sand castles and playing in the ocean. Even Casey got into the fun, and remembered not to eat the sand this time.
However, after a few hours of fun in the sun, the youngest two were wiped out. Casey was smart to nap in the shade. I ended up with a nasty sunburn on my back.
Side bar: When we got back from the beach and were hosing off the kids we noticed a rash on the kids legs and butts, and Casey seemed rather warm and crabby. We gave him some Tylenol and chalked it up to teething, sand fleas, and possible ear ache.
The next day the ship stopped in Cozumel. This was my 3rd time to this island and Ryan's 2
nd, so I wanted to do something other than just the beach. So I signed us up for a 7 hour shore excursion to see
Tulum (Mayan ruins) on main land Mexico. By this point in the trip the girls were suffering from the cumulative effects of lack of sleep, so they were whiny, argumentative, and just plain difficult. Casey who is typically the happiest baby on the face of the earth was absolutely miserable and refusing to eat, drink, or take his pacifier. I really can't tell you a darn thing the tour guide said but here is a picture of
Tulum.
Tulum over looks the ocean, and all the girls wanted to do there was go to the beach, so we hiked down to try and salvage this shore
excursion. Looking back on my decision making, I shouldn't have spent a ton of money on the trip to
Tulum, we should have just taken a $10 cab ride to the beach in Cozumel.
After our two stops, we had another day at sea. Casey was still
absolutely miserable. The girls were relatively well behaved. They took a nap every day, but didn't go to bed until 10/11pm
every night, and were up before 7am every morning. Plus, when we need a break from they, we could send them off to the kids club for a few hours to be entertained with movies, crafts, games, and a jungle gym. Then Ryan and I could escape for another round of beer tasting. On the last night, the ship put on another fantastic show with aerial acrobatics and some other amazing stunts. The kids were enthralled again, and I even took Elizabeth to the show twice.
The flight home with three whiny, tired kids was not very enjoyable. It made you ask yourself why you every bother leaving the house in the first place. However, we survive it and I don't think we annoyed our fellow travelers too much.
The day after getting home, the girls stared complaining that their mouths hurt and they didn't want to eat. When I took a look inside, their mouths were plastered with ulcers. Finally, putting two and two together. The doctor in our family came up with hand, foot, and mouth disease (rash, fever, mouth ulcers). It still didn't make it any better that Casey, who were were banking on being a perfect angel on the cruise, was a miserable mess, but at least it gave us a reasonable
explanation why he didn't want to eat, drink, or be consoled. Ryan was spared, but Elizabeth, Ava, and I spent the following week miserable because our mouths hurt so much. At least I lost any weight that I might I have put on during the cruise.
I don't think we are going on another family vacation anytime soon, maybe not until the kids are all over the age of 7. And as much as we love
Chaos, Destruction, and Mayhem, ( I mean Elizabeth, Ava, and Casey) we are still dreaming of the day that we will take a vacation without them.
