Soleil's Mom

Thanks for sharing. We'll be in Roatan in October.

I do have a quick question about the vanilla. We always buy ours in Cozumel, and now the regular vanilla we can buy in the grocery stores tastes like crap. Is the vanilla from Roatan as good as Mexican vanilla? Not as concerned about cost, as much as taste. Thanks!

Has anyone done the Ocean World excursion while in Amber Cove? Their website has a sea lion interaction that doesn't look like it's offered thru Carnival. Can I get to Ocean World on my own? Or is it best to go through Carnival?

We'll be just down the hall in 8348. We'll be quiet getting off the elevators. :D

Just to be sure... You can book the chefs table by emailing the Steakhoue? How does one get that address? For those who have done it, did you book before or once on board?

Ashevillenccruiser, here is the e-mail address I used. I have it booked for October already.

cqsteakhouse@carnival.com

Good morning from your neighbor in CT! My next cruise will be on the Conquest, but not this itinerary. We actually did your itinerary on the Miracle years ago! I'm enjoying your review so far, and I just had to say that I found it funny that you flew out of Hartford cheaper than TF Green. We live pretty much center of the 2, and always price shop between them. The last several flights have all been out of Green because of the huge difference. I was shocked when you said Bradley was cheaper.

Keep up the great review. You're giving me something to do during this interminable wait!

I bought the lanyards, or rather, someone on here bought the lanyards for me, and I gave them to the boys with their shirts. I think they were $8 a piece. There are free lanyards available in the casino as I recall, but they are the slinky type. The only gripe I had about the lanyards is that they come with a plastic pouch for the card, and it is the flimsiest, most useless piece of plastic ever created. D hadn't even had his on for an hour when he ripped it the first time. He ripped it again that night at camp, and the third hole was killed the next day. By that point, Will had ripped his once, and then lost the whole thing somehow. Not the card, just the plastic. We ended up going to Guest services and having holes punched in the card. It worked much better. I love the lanyards for the boys, since they are easier to find than a randomly placed card by itself.

For the Build A Bear, the prices varied. It was $71 for our 3 animals and the hoodies. I think they started at about $17 and went up to $25 or so. They had outfits for sale as well, but we just got the hoodies, which I think were $5 each. I admit I didn't pay as close attention as I should have to prices.

I'll be finishing the rest of the review tonite when I get home from work. Thanks for following along so far.

I forgot to mention that our 3 meals and 3 sodas came to $58. Nope, not the cheapest, but worth it in the long run. I sent Will over with a $10 tip for the waitress, because she was really nice and talked with the boys for a bit.

Before we left, the boys tried to catch a lizard, but they are quick little buggers, so we had to leave without a new friend.

We headed back to the ship, and passed by Senor Frogs. We could hear the happy cruisers inside, and I told the boys that Nassau was famous for people missing the ship because of places like this.

I advised both of them to avoid places like this, even when they are old enough to drink. I'm sure they'll listen to me.

We walked back up the street and stopped at the Harley shop to buy SFAM and Shawn a t-shirt. Then we headed back thru the port shopping area. Each boy asked if they could get something, and I said yes. Will found a ship that said the Bahamas on it, because he was met with weird looks when he asked if they had snow globes. Poor kid. D found a wooden alligator that moved and I bought a new magnet, because my stupid cat broke my old one. We got in line with lots of drunk people, and checked thru with security before walking on board. I reminded the boys that this would be the last time they would be on solid ground before we were back in the States in 2 days. They were sad, but a little happy to be heading home. I again made the executive decision that adults got to shower first. However, this time, D did get to go second.

After showers, we had every intention of going up to watch the sail-away, but the boys decided they needed naps instead, and once again, who am I to go against a majority vote?

We woke up around 530, and the boys decided they were getting hungry. I made them dress nicely even tho we were heading to the buffet because I wanted to get another picture or 2.

After dinner, the boys went to Camp for a Pirate Adventure. I picked up the little pirate around 1000

but Will wanted to stay a little longer. D and I headed up to Lido to get some ice cream, and D said he was hungry again, so he had some pizza, and then some more ice cream. Will found us up there, and we all headed back to the room around 1115. We found our towel animal of the night

and I checked out the big pirate.

notice the ice cream in his hand. I think that was the best part of the cruise for the boys. LOL. I made the boys wash their faces and we watched some TV and chatted about the cruise before finally crashing aound 1230 or so. Tomorrow was our last sea day.

This is the little outdoor bar area where we ate lunch. I think its the Aqua Bar. If you Google BCH menu, you can usually find a copy of it fairly easily. Also, this is totally a picture from my trip in 2010. There are new, nicer loungers around the pool now.

We sat down and the waitress came over with menus. I gave her our vouchers, and we all ordered soda. She brought them back, and they were warm, but served with a big cup of ice. The boys didn't care, but yuck. She also brought us a basket of chips and nacho cheese.

Will and I both ordered the grouper fingers, and D had the chicken fingers. Will and D's plates came out first, and they were nice sized. Will's plate had 3 pretty big big pieces of fish, and D had 3 pieces of chicken and both had a mound of fries. Mine came out about 5 minutes later, and I had 6 pieces of fish, so I gave 2 of them to Will, who was evidently starving since he ate all of it. D did a pretty good job of finishing his as well. Got to love that salt water and sunshine appetite! After lunch, we walked by the pool and D asked if he could swim in it. I told him that we could, butt that the pool was a quiet area with no jumping or diving. He decided he liked the ocean better, so we headed back there. They were less than happy about being told they couldn't go right back in the water, but needed to wait a bit after eating. I love D's sulky face. LOL

They both took it in stride, and decided to play in the sand for a bit before heading back into the water.

I let them head back in the water for a while, and then around 300 I called them out and told them we had to get ready to go back. This is the sad boys.

After a little while, D got distracted with chasing the birds.

Both boys decided they were hungry, and I sent them into the water to rinse off before we headed up for lunch.

The boys then decided they wanted to try kayaking. I had to go up to the booth and sign out life jackets and a paddle for them. D was content to be a passenger when he tried to pick up the paddle, and Will had fun paddling around. They thought it was pretty awesome that there were so many ships in port with s today.

From l-r, that's the Silver Shadow, the Norwegian Sky (again), the Carnival Fantasy, and the Enchantment of the Seas (NCL).

After kayaking for a while, the boys went swimming again, then decided they wanted to play in the sand some more. BCH actually has a stack of sand toys, so the boys checked them out and brought a couple more down to be more creative. My plan was to leave our buckets here for the next kid, which we did. Yea for room in the suitcase!

Oops, before we went swimming the boys found a cannon.

Because I needed to boost myself back up in the running for Super Cool Aunt of the Yea, I showed D how to use his sand bucket as a personal flotation device. Both boys thought this was pretty awesome. Phew, back inthe running. LOL

I woke up again around 730 or so when the thrusters kicked in. I don't think the room was bad because of this, I just think that it was about time for me to wake up anyway, and the weird noise created by the thrusters was enough to wake me up. It never bothered the boys. It was about 8 that the boys got up and once again had to clamber over me to look out the window. We could see another ship next to us, not that big a surprise for Nassau. We got dressed, gathered our junk for the day, and headed up for breakfast at the buffet again. It was about 915 when we got off, and since I didn't get any pics of the boys with the ship yesterday, I made darn sure I got some today. Plus, Nassau is just set up better than Freeport is.

We walked thru the shopping area, politely saying "No thank you" to all the vendors, and headed out to walk along the water. We were heading for the British Colonial Hilton.

I was there in 2010 and loved everything about it, so I made sure I made reservations early. The fact that it is in walking distance makes it even better. The place is absolutely gorgeous

and I didn't think the prices were too awful. Of course, I'm not a drinker, so that might make a difference. Adults are $60, kids 6 and up are $30, and kids 5 and under are free. We also got $60 worth of food and beverage credits to spend ($40 per adult, $20 per paying child). When we were checking in, the lady at the front desk was talkative with the boys, and asked them how they were doing, and how they liked the cruise so far. I asked about Wi-Fi, and she said there is an $11 fee for day pass visitors to use it, but because I was a Super Cool Auntie, she gave me the password for free. She gave the boys small packages of jelly beans, and we headed out to the beach. We grabbed 3 loungers near an umbrella, and I doused all 3 of us in sunscreen. I started to dig thru my backpack only to realize I forgot D swimmy things, and both of their goggles. Ugh. I have just fallen out of contention for Aunt of the Year. Both boys went into the water anyway, and we were happy to swim and float around for a while.

At about 200, D started getting a little whiny, saying he was tired, and even Will said he was ready to go back to the ship. We packed up, and headed up to grab our taxi back to the port, making sure we had a baggie of sand for their mom. I bought 3 bottles of water at $2 each, and we climbed into the taxi van with a bunch of other hot, sweaty people, and went back to the ship. We got back around 3 pm. It’s a good 20-25 minute drive from the port to the beaches. Neither of the boys were interested in purchasing anything we saw, so we got back on the ship and headed up to Lido for some lunch. We all had hamburgers and hotdogs with French fries, and gallons of lemonade. I made the executive declaration that as the adult, I got to shower first! We headed down to the room, we all showered and were chilling out in the room when D decided he was tired and wanted a nap. Will concurred, and who was I to argue with a majority vote? Needless to say, we all slept thru sail away from Freeport, and woke up around 545. At about 630, we all headed up to the buffet for dinner. D tried a few things, Will had some jerk pork and fish that he said was very good. We headed up to camp at about 730 for the adventure that night. I don't remember what it was, I can't find the Camp schedule, and I don't have any pictures of any one's face painted to remind me. I know we went to get ice cream after Camp, because that became our thing during the cruise. We headed back to the room and found our towel animal

we all cleaned up and got ready for bed and Will discovered that he was indeed sunburned, so I had to laugh at him. Luckily, I brought along some Blue Snot, as the boys call it, so after showers I doused them in it. We talked for a while about what we were doing tomorrow, the fact that our cruise was officially half way over, they kept saying how much fun they were having and asking where we were going on our next cruise, and all kinds of other things. The boys finally fell asleep around midnite or so, and I followed them soon after.

I woke up around 715 or so when I could feel and hear the thrusters kick on as we were docking in Freeport. It was only about 20 minutes later or so that the boys started stirring. D wanted to know if he could see land, so I told them to look out the window. Dumb move on my part, since they basically took that as an OK to crawl over me and look out the window rather than waiting for me to get up. Everyone got dressed in their bathing suits, we packed towels and sunscreen into my backpack, D was in charge of carrying the buckets, and we headed up to the buffet for breakfast at about 830. It wasn’t too busy, so were able to find a spot easily and I encouraged the boys to eat extra, since lunch was a long time away. We got off the ship around 915, and walked over to get in line for a taxi.

My initial plan was to head to the Grand Lucayan, but I overheard some of the wrangler people telling others that the Grand Lucayan had been turning people away the last couple days, unless you got there super early. The Norwegian Sky was in port with us, and they had gotten in earlier than us, so I asked one of the wranglers where they would suggest going instead. They said Junkanoo Beach was nice, and pretty cheap, so that’s where we headed.

It was a $14 round trip taxi trip per person, but D was free, then it was $2 for entrance to the beach, but both boys were free. We walked onto the beach at about 1030. I rented 2 chairs for $12, and the guy drug them down closer to the water. We got asked right away about buying jewelry and having my hair braided, which was kind of a bummer, but they took no for an answer and kept walking. I doused D in sunscreen, made Will stand still for some, then doused myself as well. The boys were in the water before I even got my sunscreen on, and they were super happy to be swimming. Now, we happen to be in coastal CT. The town I live and work in is home to the USCGA, and the Naval Base is right across the river. The boys live about 20-25 minutes north of me, but both of them have grandparents who live close to a beach. I know Will spends a lot of time in the water when he’s at his grandparent’s, but I was surprised to find out this was the first time D has ever been to a beach! I knew his grandparents have a pool, so I guess they never go to the beach. I was super happy that I had taken up space in my luggage to pack those stupid sand buckets now. We spent a couple hours in the water, because it was so warm and blue. I even floated in the water and watched them play in the sand for a while. There were quite a few people on the beach, and there was a place to buy food and drinks, but we never ended up going over there.

I did end up getting out of the water and spent a little time on the beach, hiding under a towel, and not succeeding so well. I reapplied sunscreen to D and I, but Will insisted he was fine.

After dinner, neither boy wanted to head up to camp, because the party tonite was Prince and Princess, and D decided that just sounded Lame. I kind of agreed. We wandered around a bit, and had a couple other pictures taken. Several people told the boys how handsome/ cute they looked as we walked around. We headed back to the room and changed into normal clothes, checked out our towel animal

then went out and wandered the ship a bit. Neither boy was interested in the shows, so we went up on Lido and watched the wake in the dark, and then headed back to the room about 930. The boys watched some TV, played their games, D colored for a bit, we talked about tomorrow and what we would be doing, and then they boys went to Camp Carnival for the Night Owl party. There was a $13 per kid charge, and ran for about 2 hours. When I picked the boys up from Camp (and this was one time when Will couldn't sign himself out), they each had a cinch-sack with a stuffed owl in it.

They both said they had fun, and were glad they went. We headed back to the cabin and the boys crashed around 1245. Both the boys were looking forward to hitting the beach tomorrow in Freeport. D just kept saying, "I'm going to a foreign beach! I've never been anywhere foreign!" I couldn't stop giggling every time he said it. I fell asleep around 115 myself, and was also looking forward to seeing Freeport for the first time.

Our fancy pics from tonight.

I think picking out pictures is one of the hardest things to do, especially considering how expensive they are. I absolutely would have bought more, but at $23 each, I needed to show some restraint. I still spent about $200 on pictures, which for me is unheard of! I know they have that new package for $350, but that seems really expensive to me. There has simply got to be a better way for Carnival to do the pictures.

At about 530 we all got dressed up in our spiffy duds and we headed up to deck 8 to get photos done. I promised their mom that I would get some nice pictures of them, and of course I wanted one with all 3 of us. I hate the fact that the pictures are so damn expensive. I really wish that Carnival would start doing some sort of digital program like Disney World does. It seems like such a waste of time and money printing all those pictures that never get purchased.

After doing a couple of pictures, we headed over to the Celebration DR and got a pager. This was the first time we had to wait for a seat, and we ended up waiting about 30 minutes. We waited in the Pharaoh’s Lounge (the piano bar)

and it was pretty cool to watch all the people walking around. I have to say that I was pretty darn impressed with how well people were dressed, especially for a 5 day cruise. If it hadn’t been for me specifically wanting nice pics of the boys, I probably would have skipped formal night completely. I’m not a huge fan of dressing up, and fancy clothes seem to make the boys itchy. I did remind them when they tried to complain at one point that they were just wearing pants and a shirt, whereas I was wearing a dress, and if they didn’t stop whining, they could wear the dress instead! Suddenly their outfits were just fine!

Will and I had done the Build a Bear on the Glory, and I wanted to continue the tradition this time. This isn’t something I do on my non-kid cruises, but my dog from the Glory needed a friend. D and I both picked the dog, and Will picked the cat. I seem to remember that when we did this on the Glory, they animals came with a shirt that had the ship name on it, but this time I had to pay $3 extra for a hoodie that said Fantasy. Oh well. We had fun, and the boys enjoyed it. It’s a good souvenir too.

Will named his cat Callie, and D named his dog Cruise Fun. They come with birth certificates, which they wanted me to fill out, so we headed back to the room to drop them off and clean up for dinner.

Apologies for the little text in the above post. I don't know what happened, but the computer I'm working on right now is archaic and difficult and won't let me change it. Sorry! I'm going to put off doing any more until I can get to my own computer and do this properly. But thatnks to everyone who is following along.

Yes, my SFAM loves me, and looks forward to me running away with her kids periodically. Neither she nor her husband (D's dad) have any qualms at all about letting me take them anywhere. I'm glad too, because I love going places and making great memories with them. I'd be bummed as all get out if they didn't trust me enough to take the boys any where.

For those of you sailing soon on the Fantasy, have an awesome time! I REALLY loved this ship. She doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but she never seemed super crowded, and was fairly easy to navigate. I was joking with the boys that I have now officially been on the oldest and the newest ship in Carnival's fleet. And the Sunshine doesn't count as the newest. I don't care what they say, she's just a revamped ship, which makes the Breeze the newest. And next year, I'm booked on the Vista, so then it will be officially the oldest and newest, no if, ands, or buts!

I tend to only need about 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night, and going to bed early with the boys was wreaking havoc on my sleep cycle (I work 3 afternoon shifts a week at home, and don’t get home until 1 am those days). This morning I was up at 6 freakin 30 am. I happily read for a good hour and a half (and just maybe dozed a little too) before the boys started stirring around 815. We got up, got dressed, and headed up to breakfast at the buffet at about 9 am. Personally, I prefer to MDR breakfast, but the boys are happy with the buffet, and I’d rather bargain for dinner in the MDR over any other meal. D asked about going swimming, and I asked him if he wanted to go to Camp for a bit, and he did. Camp opens around 10 am each day, and we ended up getting there around 1030 or so for the Circus Adventure (Because last night was the Jungle Adventure, not the Circus. Oops). After I dropped him off at Camp, I had a quick reminder chat with Will about what he was going to do, and how he needed to check in. He went off to Camp, and I went to the Lido deck and found a shady spot to read for a while. Yes, I read a LOT. Honestly, I finished a total of 13 books on this 5 day cruise. Normally, I would be chasing trivia contests all over, but there didn’t seem to be many scheduled for when I was free, and I wasn’t about to try and drag the boys along and torture them by making them sit thru trivia. I always do my very best to try and win a Ship on a Stick, but it wasn’t in the cards for this cruise. Ah well. At about noon I went up to Camp to grab my clown

and we went down to the room where he changed into his bathing suit and we excitedly went up to the pool. I brought my tablet to read, but decided I really needed to keep an eye on the 40” tall kid in the 54” pool. The pool wasn’t too crowded, so I had a quick chat with him about proper pool manners and jumping in in front of people, but seriously….why are there adults there sitting on the side of the pool who then YELL at kids for splashing them? Go the freakin’ Serenity Pool if you don’t want to deal with kids playing in the pool! I have never in 9 cruises been in a pool on a cruise ship. It’s not my thing. I save my sun exposure for the beach or other activities. But I’m NOT going to sit there and listen to you yelling at a bunch of kids for playing in the only damn pool on the ship they are allowed in! D was too short to be on the big water slide, and wasn’t interested in going into the splash park, he wanted to be in the pool.

One woman in front of me started to yell at him when he was swimming and inadvertently splashed her. I reminded her she was at the POOL, and if she didn’t want to be wet, she should probably grab a lounge chair instead. She just glared at me, but didn’t say a word at all after that. She left about 10 minutes later. I did have a mom come up to me and say that she wished she would have had enough guts to tell the mean lady that, and her son was going back in the pool now because I told the mean lady to stop yelling at the kids. LOL. It’s cool to be someone’s hero. After about 30 minutes in the pool, D came over and asked if he could go to the hot tub. I reminded him that the hot tub was for sitting quietly, not swimming, and told him if he misbehaved, he would be hauled out. He spent about 20 minutes in the hot tub, then came over and said he wanted to go back in the pool. He found a couple of kids to play with, and no one was yelling at them for splashing. Gee, wouldn’t have anything to do with the crazy lady under the umbrella, would it? While I was sitting there watching D, Will found me and said that he and his friend Devon (I think) were going to the other side of the pool, because they didn’t want D to see them. I couldn’t really blame him, so I ran interference for them. Will came back at one point to tell me they were heading to the slide, and I reminded him he needed to be back in the room by 300 for an activity that we were all going to at Camp, and not to eat too late because of going to dinner. At about 215 D came over and said he was kind of hungry, so we dried him off and headed over to the grill, where he had…you guessed it! Chicken tenders and fries. I had some fries with cheese sauce and chili, and we both had about a gallon of lemonade. After he ate we walked back thru the buffet area and got some ice cream, then headed down to the room to change back into dry clothes. Will came in at 3 sharp, changed, and then we headed up to Camp for the Build-A-Bear. But first, we all admired the goodies I had managed to finagle for them by writing a nice note to John Heald.

I had written to him explaining how much the boys loved checking out my collection of Ships on a Stick at home, and how I knew I was never going to be able to win 3 of them on board, and would he PLEASE send me 2? I certainly didn;t expect the strawberries or champagne, so they were an extra nice bonus. And such a shame that neither of the boys wanted any, and I had to eat them all by myself. I admit I didn;t drink the champagne, I left it for the cabin steward at the end of the cruise. Not sure what he did with it, but I assume it didn't go to waste.

Back to the trip, sorry for the little pictorial diversion there.

When they finally released us, we headed up to the mini-golf for sail away, only to hear that we wouldn’t be leaving for another hour. The boys grabbed some golf clubs while I watched them play for a while.

Finally, at about 5:10, the ship started to pull away from the dock and the boys came over to watch.

The truly crappy part about this was that the Camp orientation was scheduled for 5 pm in the theater, but I didn’t want D to miss his first sail-away, so we ended up showing up to the orientation too late to really meet any of the other kids. We did get the schedule, and were able to meet a couple of the counselors who were happy to chat with the boys a bit.

After meeting with the counselors and getting schedules for both camps, we sat in the theater for a bit and discussed what they wanted to do. There was a Circus Adventure activity in D's age group at 730 that he wanted to go to. I talked to Will a bit about what was expected of him, since he was old enough to sign in and out of Camp himself. I set a few basic rules, like he needed to leave a note in the cabin if he was going someplace other than Camp. And how no one was allowed in our cabin, nor was he allowed to go in anyone else's. And also that if I found out he was rude or disrespectful to any crew member or other person on the ship, or if was one of those obnoxious kids that got into the elevator and pressed EVERY. SINGLE. BUTTON. that his rear end would be confined to the cabin for the rest of the cruise. He promised to be on his absolute best behavior, and thanked me for trusting him to be able to wander the ship on his own. By this time, the boys decided they were hungry, and honestly, I wanted to make sure they got to Camp on time anyway, so we headed to the MDR for dinner. I booked us for ATD, since it is easier with them, and I also knew we wouldn't be going to the MDR every night.

Right outside the area where you go for dinner was a little lounge with a couple of stern guardians.

We were seated almost immediately, and at a table for 4. I prefer not to be at a big table, because the kids table manners are sometimes a little lacking, and they also tend to want to rush thru dinner, so I hate being held hostage to other people's timing.

D ate chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese, staples of the entire cruise. I reminded them they could eat whatever they wanted. Will had the tilapia dish, but it came with some weird stuff that he wasn't impressed with. Remember, I did say he was the pickiest eater on the planet. After dinner was over, I dropped D off at Camp, and came back around 930 to pick him up. My little tiger was very excited about how fun Camp was.

Will came back to the cabin right at 10 like he was supposed to, and we were thrilled to find our first towel animal!

We all took showers, chatted about the day, what was coming tomorrow, and how excited they were. Around 1130 or so I noticed it was pretty quiet, so I turned off my light and went to sleep too. Tomorrow was a whole other day to start making some great memories!

Some actual pics that I took of the boys around the ship.

That's the USS Yorktown behind them.

And of course the obligatory Whale Tail photo.

Being boys, they were especially enamored of the giant tire in Cat's Lounge.

Will decided that this was about the size of the box of laundry detergent their mom needed.

Also, here is the reason that the shuttle buses are used. If you look just to 1 o'clock of center, there is a small white tent. That is where we got out of the taxi and handed over our luggage. From there, we walked about 25 feet to the left, just to the other side of those 2 trees, and got on the shuttle. The shuttle then goes all the way to the left and follows the road around the marshy area and the buildings belonging to those nasty black roofs. It's a bit of a hike, so I appreciate the shuttles. Unfortunately, for those of us taking a taxi after the cruise, we had to hike that whole distance back to the area by the tent WITH OUR LUGGAGE to get to the taxi area. Not cool Carnival, not cool.

And one picture of Charleston I took from the ship.

(I'm totally going to admit right now that I didn't really get any pictures of the ship. All the pics below except for the ones with the boys in them were just grabbed off the internet. Not sure what happened, I'm usually better about taking tons of pics. I think it was chasing 2 kids that melted my brain)

I answered about 876234785 questions about the ship, the crew, the food, where we were going, what to expect, and on and on and on. We went up to Camp Carnival to check it out

and we walked the Promenade

to check out the theater area. We went up to Lido deck and walked around to the pool and hot tub

to the water slide/ splash park area

thru the buffet, where we of course had to make a pit stop to eat. D was amazed at how the buffet worked, and how much food there was to try. Will on the other hand is the pickiest eater on the face of the Earth (it makes me INSANE), so he was a little less enthused about the buffet. I wasn’t in a rush to show them the grill where the hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken tenders were, because I knew once they found that, we’d never eat lunch anywhere else again! Had there been a Guy’s on-board, I probably would have been a bit more willing, lol. After lunch, we walked to the front of the ship on Lido and found the giant chess board

mini-golf course, and the track. At about 2:45, we headed back to the room and brought all of our luggage in. We then spent about 45 minutes unpacking and in general calming the boys down, because I knew the Muster drill was coming up, and that is always especially rough on the kids. The call to the muster drill started at about 330, and at about 340 we headed up to Lido where our muster station was. I reminded the boys how incredibly important it was to listen and be quiet while this was happening. It was kind of a cluster*$@# to be honest. It was hard to understand what was being said, even for me. The camp staff came around and put the bracelets on the boys, and I kind of condensed what I knew about the emergency procedures down for the boys while we were standing around. Basically, I told them that if there was an emergency and they weren’t with me, they damn well better listen to whatever adult was in charge of them and I would find them.

Everywhere I read about Charleston suggested not getting there too early because of the embarkation taking a while, so I wasn’t in a hurry to get the boys moving this morning. I woke up around 730, and physically got the boys moving around 8:15 or so. We walked over to the Huddle House for breakfast, and then headed back to the room. D of course asked about the swimming pool AGAIN. Poor kid, all he wanted to do was go swimming because I had told them both that it would be warm enough to do it where we were going. I reminded them that we had someplace way better than this hotel to go to, and that we needed to go finish packing so we could head out. We got back to the room, and got all of our electronics packed and made sure all the clothes were picked up. I then sat them on the bed and said that I didn’t really like the shirts they were wearing and needed new ones. I had them close their eyes and hold out their hands. I then handed a new shirt to each of them and told them to open their eyes and see if they could figure out where we were going. I videoed it for their mom, and it was a riot! The shirts.

(Yes, I’m a sci-fi geek and I love Firefly) Will read it out loud, and it took a couple of seconds for it to actually sink in, then they both got super excited and were yelling and going a little crazy. Overall, I was pretty happy with the Big Reveal and their reaction to it. However, now we were onto Round 539 of Ask Auntie Tonya because now they had a whole new subject to quiz me about. I put my shirt on, and we headed down to the office to check out and call a taxi.

We had a fairly quick trip over to the port, and the boys had some questions for the taxi driver, who was happy to answer them and give me a 10-minute breather from being the Dispenser of Educational Facts. LOL. We pulled up to the port and I had to show all our documents before they would even let us in. The guard asked the boys a few questions, and the boys were happy to share everything they just learned with the poor guy, who I’m betting was ridiculously sorry he asked the boys how they were doing. We then drove over under a small tent and the porter came and grabbed our bags. D was feeling so grown up because he got to tip the porter all by himself. They both remembered to say thank you to the driver and the porter without me prompting them. Charleston’s parking area is a little different than any port I’ve been to before, and you have to board a shuttle bus after you drop off your luggage. The shuttle takes you out to the ship and you head into the building for check in. We got to the port at about 1130, and we walked in to virtually no line, especially since I had splurged for FttF. There were about 15-20 people in the regular check-in line, but we got taken in immediately. The boys were flitting about like crazed hummingbirds, and when the poor woman tried to round them up to take their picture, it took a few minutes to coax them into position and to stand still. I think she had to take D’s picture 3 times as he was literally bouncing in place. I finally put my hand on top of his head and sort of squished him to the ground. I reminded him that the sooner he stood still for his picture, the sooner we could get ON the damn ship! About 5 minutes later, we were the proud recipients of a blue, red and gold card, and we headed up the stairs to board the ship.

As they were getting ready to step on the ramp, I reminded them this would be the last time they would be setting foot in America for 5 WHOLE DAYS! They were a bit excited about that, and pretty much flew up the incredibly steep ramp to the 7th deck. All I kept thinking as I was hiking up this freakin’ ramp was how bad it must suck if you were in a wheelchair. I’m so used to boarding on Deck 3 that being 4 decks higher confused the bejeesus out of me. As we stepped onto the ship, it was 1148. That’s a grand total of 18 minutes to check in and get on the ship. Hooray! We went over to Guest Services since we were right there and I put the gift card that I purchased on Black Friday down for our account. There was only 1 other person there, so that was super easy, and the boys were just sort of staring at everything while I did it. We then walked down the stairs one deck and headed to our cabin to drop off our backpacks. About a month before the cruise I had upgraded our room from an inside to an Ocean View. They had some pretty good sales going on when you could catch them, and despite not booking Early Saver, I still managed to get the OV room for only $10 more. My only gripe with the IS rooms is that they don’t actually have 3 beds; instead you get a trundle bed to go with the King/ 2 twins. The OV room actually had 3 separate real beds, so it was worth the $10 to me. The set up was pretty cool too, because they put one twin against the window, and the other under the bunk bed perpendicular to it. So basically the beds formed an “L, which left a lot more floor space open.

That’s never a bad thing with 3 people, 2 of which are kids. Our luggage wasn’t there yet (not really surprised by that as quick as we got on), so we headed out and went to explore the ship.

Greetings, and welcome to my trip report. I’m mostly writing this for my sister from another mother (SFAM), who likes to read them and see what sort of trouble her boys and I get into when she lets us loose on the world. I’m perfectly content if I don’t get anyone following along. There are so many way cooler reviewers than myself out there, I can’t blame you for being kind of bored by the exploits of an almost-6-year-old, and 11-year-old, and a 40-something, single girl. With that being said, if you still decide to follow along, let me introduce our intrepid travelers.

Davidson, more commonly known as D in family circles, is almost 6 (June to be exact). We’ve done a couple of short over-nights, but this was our first long trip, and his first cruise. He’s a good kid, and I knew having his big brother along would be a huge help.

William “I like Will better” is 11. He and I were on a cruise together in 2012. We went to Canada. It was…different. I prefer my cruises to someplace warm and beachy. We also went to FL last year and went to Discovery Cove and SeaWorld. We’ve had more short trips than I can count, and I love spending time with him, and D too.

Me? That's me on the left with my SFAM. I’m a divorced, 40-something with no kids of my own. I have a career that I have been lucky enough to work at for almost 23 years now, but I work some really crazy hours. I don’t get to see the boys as often as I wish I could because I work weekends. Needless to say, I always try and plan some really awesome trips for us to go on when we can. Sometimes, it’s just an afternoon spent going to trampoline parks and science museums, or bowling, or the aquarium, or even the movies and dinner. We’ve been to a couple of water and amusement parks, and I’m planning an end of the summer trip to Boston for us right now. My SFAM gripes at me all the time about “Are you sure you want to spend all this money on them?” and my response is always that they are my beneficiaries, and when I die, they will get any money that’s left over. Personally, I’d rather spend it all making super-cool memories with them than to leave them a chunk of change from some crazy aunt they never met. Anyway, this cruise was my 9th, all with Carnival. I’m not a Carnival cheerleader by any means. However, I haven’t had such a bad vacation with them that it would cause me to pay more to try another line. Yes, I’ve looked, and simply can’t justify the price difference. No, Carnival isn’t perfect. But I like it, and will continue to sail the line until something happens that I just can’t get past.

I started planning this trip in October of last year. I usually cruise in October with an amazing group of people, but due to weird circumstances, we didn’t cruise last year. I was supposed to go with my sister and BIL on a cruise for her 40th, but they ended up booking a cruise that I really didn’t want to go on, and I couldn’t find anyone to room with, so I told them I wasn’t going. Once that decision was made, I realized I couldn’t go 2 whole years without cruising, so I called up SFAM and asked her if she would let me steal her kids and take them out of the country for a week. I give her a lot of credit, because she never even bats an eye at my requests anymore. She simply said, “Of course! Let me know what you need from me.” And off I went with the planning after swearing her to secrecy! I REALLY wanted to drive to the port, since flying with 3 of us was going to get insanely expensive, and Will decided last year that he HATED flying. I priced the Pride out of Baltimore, but they only do 7 day cruises, and they are quite expensive, so I looked at 5 days out of Charleston. Yes, the Fantasy is the oldest ship in the fleet, and is lacking the 2.0 upgrades. But the price was right, the boys weren’t going to miss the upgrades, and it was within driving distance. BOOKED!!! After I booked the cruise, I kind of laid low for a bit, and waited until after Christmas to get totally caught up in the rest of the planning.

Once the holidays were over, I started looking at the logistics of driving. Had there been 2 adults going, I honestly think I would have driven there, but with one adult to 2 kids, looking at a 15 hour trip, I decided to explore other avenues of transportation. Oh look, Amtrak goes to Charleston! And kids travel at half price? Even better! BOOKED!!! I did decide to splurge and fly us home, since I figured the last thing the boys would want to do was take 20 hours (with a layover) to get home after the cruise. The flight home was in 2 segments, so I figured Will would be a little happier, since I think it was mostly the boredom of sitting still for 3 hours that had him hating flying (PS, I was totally right, but I’ll get to that at the end). BOOKED!! I found a decent priced hotel that wasn’t too far from the port and booked our room. Awesome, everything is pretty much booked, now it’s on to the fun stuff! I bought new luggage, which I really needed, and a bunch of clothing for them. Will has evidently decided to have a growth spurt over the last year, and none of his summer clothes fit, so I bought him some shorts, sandals, and t-shirts, and the cutest darn suit for formal night! D on the other hand, does not seem to be growing, so he got fewer clothes, but still got a super cute suit and some new stuff to wear. Meanwhile, the boys have NO CLUE that I am planning a cruise, they only know we are going somewhere. They are having a lot of fun trying to figure out what we are doing, and are dropping all kinds of hints to me and their mom. Will reminded me that he LOVED cruising, and thought that D would love it too. I told him he was crazy, that D was way too young to cruise right now. Technically, I never lied to them, because D really did need to be a little older. Like, on April 12th I thought he would be the perfect age to cruise. LOL. We had a couple of outings waiting for the Big Trip, and Will even had a birthday in February. I got him a watch, knowing that he would be old enough to sign himself in and out of camp and would need one. Not the most exciting gift he’s ever gotten from me, but he knew we were going away in just 6 more weeks. I coordinated packing lists with my SFAM, made final plans for my critters to go to their respective sitters, and worked every hour of overtime I could.

The Tuesday before we left, I met my SFAM for lunch and we got all the paperwork notarized for travel. We finished packing, and I took the suitcases with me out to my Jeep. I planned on a quick trip after school for the 3 of us to go see a movie and grab dinner. The boys came walking down the driveway while I was putting suitcases in the Jeep, and D screamed “Finally it’s time for our trip!!” and was climbing in the back seat ready to go! He was quite sad when I explained that we were only going to the movies, and that he had to wait until Friday to actually leave for the trip. Being 5, he declared that Friday was forever away, and he was going to die before it got here. Kids. We went to see Home, had some pizza, and I took them home, reminding them I’d see them in just 3 days! My poor SFAM said they were bouncing for a couple hours after that (which I’m sure had nothing at all to do with the soda and ice cream), and the next morning D asked her if I was picking them up today. She also told me he asked her that EVERY DAY the rest of the week. Luckily it was only 3 days.

Friday, April 10 finally arrived. I woke up and kept thinking to myself that I was CRAZY to be taking 2 boys away for a week with no mom-line to be able to call if there was a problem. Then I would think about all the great memories we were going to make. Then the doubts would come back. Honestly, I had been doing this for about the last week (sorry to all my friends who put up with my crazy “What-If?” contemplations). I gave myself a stern talking-to, and went to get my pedicure, which made me feel a little better. I repacked for the 500th time, and answered approximately 62395 texts from SFAM. At 407 pm my phone rang, and all I heard was Will and D in the background yelling “How much longer until Auntie Tonya gets here?!?” Poor SFAM was feeling a little frazzled at that point. LOL. Our train was scheduled to depart at 1132 pm. I figured it would work out well that way, since the boys would sleep until we hit Washington DC. I drove up to get the boys at around 9 pm, and there was a whole frenzy of activity, and 4 million questions, and more “Auntie Tonya! Auntie Tonya!”s than I had heard before in my whole life, but was only a fraction of what I was about to get in the next week. We loaded everyone up and headed back to the train station. The excitement was still super high, but D was starting to crash a little due to how late it was. The announcement came over the speaker that our train would be there in 5 minutes, and SFAM and D’s dad (Will’s dad passed away when he was 3) were hugging us all and trying to give the boys all the last minutes instructions like listen to your Aunt and all that good stuff. We finally got on the train, the boys got out their blankets, and pretty much crashed right away. It took me a little longer to get settled, but finally I managed to get in a little sleep. At about 630 am we rolled into DC and had a 3 hour layover. We got some breakfast and hung out. Luckily the train from here allowed us to check our luggage, so we only had our backpacks to lug around this time. This train was actually way more comfortable than the one from CT, which was great, since we were going to be on this one for about 10 hours. The boys had their electronics (thank you Amtrak for having plugs at all the seats to keep these things charged!), so they were keeping themselves pretty entertained between rounds of Lego Star Wars and Ask-Auntie-Tonya.

We all napped a few times, and watched the scenery go by, and then discussed how the train wasn't really that much fun, and how the next time Will said he wanted to go someplace by train, I had permission to remind him about THIS trip, and played games, and ate some sandwiches, and read, and watched a movie, and…. Yep. Giant run-on sentence, but that’s pretty much how the trip felt. LOL.

We were due to pull in to Charleston at about 715 pm. However, at about 3 or so, as we were pulling into Rocky Mount, NC, we seemed to be sitting in place for a lot longer than normal. I was looking out my window and noticed a woman sitting in her SUV with a really weird expression on her face, but I figured she was just torqued that she was stuck waiting for the train to move. The next thing I knew, an ambulance and a couple of cops pulled up next to her. I said to the boys, “Oh crap, looks like there was an accident over here.” The guy in front of me said “Oh no ma’am, we hit some guy on a bicycle.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! Evidently, some older dude decided that he could make it around the gates and over the tracks before the train came along. HE WAS WRONG! Luckily, the front of the train only caught his back tire and sent him flying. He was a little hurt, but we didn't kill him or anything really bad. Will and D were watching the paramedics load the guy into the ambulance and Will says to me, “Can’t we just have a normal vacation?” Nope. Needless to say, we were held up about 35 minutes with this fiasco. We finally pulled into Charleston at about 750, we claimed our luggage and found a taxi to take us to our hotel. Our taxi driver was Jamaican, and the boys couldn't understand what he was trying to say, so I ended up playing translator for the trip. I honestly thought I was busted when he asked if we were here for the cruise tomorrow, because of course the boys understood that part! I just kind of laughed and acted like I didn't even know there was a cruise ship down here. LOL. We stayed at the Days Inn in Mount Pleasant. Nice enough place except for one small problem: No elevators. And of course, there I am, a single woman with 2 kids, one of whom is only 5, 4 pieces of luggage, and 3 backpacks. So where do they put us? The 3rd floor, of course. <grumble grumble> We lugged all our crap up, and then went back down to walk over to the Huddle House, the little restaurant that was on-site. We all had breakfast, and I introduced the boys to the Southern delight of Dr. Pepper. Will was all excited about having a Dr. Pepper with lunch the next day, and I didn’t want to ruin his Fantasy (get it?) by telling him there wouldn't be any. Anyway, we ate our food (we all had breakfast for dinner) and walked back over to the room. D found the pool and wanted to know if he could go swimming tomorrow. I told him most likely, but not here. I reminded them we were moving to another place to sleep tomorrow, and there would be a pool and water slides there. That answer seemed to suffice, and we climbed the steps back to the room. We all took showers and watched a little TV before dropping off to sleep around 11. All of our electronics were plugged in so they would be fully charged for the morning. The boys were still clueless about where we were going, but I had a little surprise up my sleeve. Sweet dreams!