The Ship

A cruise ship is a spectacular thing.  It is vast and grand and ridiculously filled to capacity with food, activities, and people...and it floats!  I have no idea how that works, but I'm so glad it did during the week we were on it.  

While I was busy up on the decks taking pictures of all the Caribbean scenery, Craig had the great idea to take pictures of the actual ship!  Hooray, because I didn't think to do that.

Right below where they're standing, there's a basketball court completely enclosed with netting so nothing can escape over the side and into the ocean.  The boys used this a lot!

Shuffleboard on Deck 7...super fun, but surprisingly tricky to play.

Pools and water slides on Deck 12

Deck 12 at night

Our room!  These are such bad pictures, but at least you can kinda see what the room looked like.  Two twin beds and a pull down bunk in each one.  A little bathroom and shower and TONS of storage space.  The whole place was pretty tiny, but super efficient.  We hardly spent any time there.

Tsar's Palace...gorgeous restaurant.  We ate here three nights in a row.

Blue Lagoon...another restaurant.

Chocolate Buffet on Day 5...if I were a chocolate fan I would have loved this so much. :)

"Washy Washy Guys"  This little guy was so cute.  He and his brother stood outside the buffet every morning singing songs about how fun it is to be clean, and squirting hand sanitizer on every single passenger.  Loved them!    

Stardust Theater

We went to nearly every show they had at night.  Most of them were pretty amazing!

On our very first day on the ship, we were encouraged to sign McKay up for the Splash Academy.  They had a huge room with massive windows and tons of organized activities for kids in different age groups.  McKay was not at all interested in this facility that day, and I honestly didn't think we'd use it, but we signed him up just in case we changed our minds, or he changed his.  And I'm so glad we did!  On the second day, he decided he wanted to check it out, and he loved it!  Most nights, he chose to hang out with his Splash Academy friends instead of singing karaoke or going to the shows with us.  Megan and Emma discovered the Teen Group, too, and had a great time meeting new friends and dancing by the pool until all hours of the night.
Oh, the life these kids had for a week! 

All week long, the Splash Academy kids practiced various circus acts, and on our very last day on the ship, they were able to use the theater to put on a real live circus!  So cute! 

We were so impressed with all the activities on the ship.  There was so much available to do that we had a hard time fitting sleep into our schedules.  We didn't even take any pictures of the spa, the art gallery, the library, the exercise room, the game room, the karaoke bar, or the casino.  Whoever thought of the idea of constructing a floating hotel was absolutely brilliant!