*Cassie*

Loved your review. So happy you let your daughter go with the flow as far as the pizza diet goes. I've seen so many judgmental comments here about that type of freedom. My baby is 18, but we always let them call the shots as far as eating on vacation. It's their vacation too after all. I'm sure she went back to her normal routine afterward. And I know it wasn't always a perfect trip with young ones, but it sounds like you took it in stride. Your report reminds me so much of our early family vacations. It gets easier and your kids will soon learn to think of family vacations as a very special tradition. One year my daughter spent the summer in Israel, my husband had a new job, so DS and I just took off to Hershey park for a few days. Both kids commented that they missed the family trip. This year it's us, DS 18, DD 21 and her boyfriend on the Magic departing 8/6. I hope they'll continue to want to vacation with us (and their kids) for many years to come.

 

 

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Yeah, we sure tried at the beginning to get her to try new things, but she is a very stubborn little girl and when she decides she's not going to try something, she's not going to try it! And I absolutely hate wasting food, so I decided to not fight it since it was just a week of vacation. Enjoy your family trip! I still love doing trips with my family.

Thank you for your review. We were on this cruise as the first leg of our B2B.

 

Did you notice in your photos of Freeport that there was a Carnival ship in one of your photos? It was the Valor in dry dock.

You know, I hadn't even noticed that, but you're right! Thanks for pointing that out. :)

I just finished my review of our cruise on the Carnival Sunshine last month and thought I'd share it here in case it helps anyone at all. I'll say cruising with two little ones sure can be tough at times, no relaxation to be had for us, but we made the best of it and still had a great time! Feel free to ask any questions.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2352649

Disembarkation

The next morning we were hit with the sad realization that this was our last breakfast and then they were kicking us off the ship. :(

We were one of the later zones, I’m thinking it was 11, which wasn’t scheduled until 12:30. So we really weren’t looking forward to figuring out how we’d pass that much time with the kids. After breakfast we went back to the room to grab the stroller and the rest of our things we would be carrying off. We weren’t sure what time we had to be out of the room, there were no announcements other than the zone they were currently disembarking. We noticed the room stewards were working on the rooms though, so Andrew asked him what time we had to be out and it was already a half hour past that. Whoops! So we quickly grabbed everything and headed out. Since we were on the 3rd floor, it was sort of crazy with people and their luggage all over the place. As we were trying to get through to the elevator, a Carnival employee told us if we were ready we could go ahead and leave now. We told him our zone wasn’t scheduled for awhile yet, but he said that our luggage would be ready and we could leave if we wanted to. Sweet!

So we ended up getting a 3 hour head start on the drive back!

We were again going to make an overnight stop in Georgia. A little craziness on the drive back - once we got a little past Atlanta, I suddenly see smoke up ahead. As we make our way around a large group of trees, we see a ton of really thick black smoke and then huge flames start shooting up. A semi and billboard were completely engulfed on the other side of the road. It must have just happened, because there were no emergency vehicles there yet. As our lane slowly continued to move past it, we realized that the semi had been full of some kind of aerosol cans which were now exploding and shooting off all over the place. So we were slightly worried for a bit there that one could hit us, but we made it past fine. The traffic was insane over there, though.

We looked it up when we got home and thankfully the driver made it out without any serious injuries before his truck caught fire!

So that was it for our trip! Overall I’ll say we were glad we went, but it definitely is hard with two little ones. We’ll definitely be back, but I think we’ll be waiting until the kids are both past the 3 year age point. I hear 4 gets easier, fingers crossed! :D And until then, I think a trip to Disney is in our future!

Thanks for reading!

She wouldn’t go back through it until Andrew came back to help take her past the spraying water. It has another set of steps right behind the slide, but for some reason she didn’t want to go that way. I was just glad she didn’t get hit with this, if she didn’t like the small sprays! Ha

At this point Landon had fallen asleep in the stroller, as I was thinking might happen.

And as you might be able to tell from his sweaty head, it was very hot out at this point and all the shaded seats were taken. I knew I was going to end up having to shower later anyway just from feeling so gross, and I wanted to try the water slide, so I decided to go back to the room to change into my swim suit.

When I got back, Sophia wanted me to take her down the slide, so I did that with her a couple times while Andrew sat with Landon, and then I told her I was going to try the water slide and I’d be right back. Well, just my luck, the slides had just been closed down since we were getting ready for sail away apparently. Lame! If I would have just changed into my swim suit earlier, I would have made it before. Oh well. So I just played with Sophia in the water works area and then we eventually moved over to the Lido pool. It was full of bigger kids splashing around playing games though, so we didn’t stay in there too terribly long.

Then it was time to go back to the room for showers and getting ready for dinner. I don’t have a pic of our dinners because I’m thinking we all ended up grabbing something we had had before, so I didn’t bother with a pic. Can’t remember. Plus, no-nap Sophia was starting to melt down and it wasn’t a fun meal…

So tonight was the Epic Rock show. I had heard so much about it and was really hoping we’d be able to attend. Although, with Sophia’s attitude through dinner, I wasn’t sure it would happen. After a break in our room though, we were hopeful she’d be ok with going for at least a little bit of it. So we tried.

She started off great, watching the pre-show guitar player.

And that was all we saw… :( She was too tired to sit quietly, so we gave up and went back to the room to finish the sad task of packing up our bags and getting these cranky kids to bed as soon as possible.

We then went back to the room to get Sophia’s swim suit and suntan lotion. Andrew wanted to do the water slides, so he changed into his trunks. I debated if I wanted to swim too, but since Landon wasn’t allowed in the water, and I didn’t really want to have to mess with showers and my hair before dinner, I figured I’d just sit on a lounge chair with him (but looking back I should have just put my swim suit on now in case).

So we went to pick up Sophia from CC and she was very excited when we told her we were going to play in the water. I got her changed and then Andrew took her up into the splash zone.

Andrew then went to go down the water slides. He went down both the blue and then the yellow. He said he loved the blue one and it went super-fast, but the yellow one went so slow that he came to a complete stop five different times and had to literally crawl out of it! I wondered why he came out of it laughing so hard!

So the water works area that you walk through to get to the slide has water spraying out all over the place and apparently Sophia didn’t like walking through it, so while Andrew was gone Sophia just stood on the steps for the longest time and then found some water to play in.

After I finished I was going to switch off with Andrew, but he changed his mind and decided he didn’t want to do it. So we played some foosball (and I kicked his butt!).

We walked around to check out the other side of Freeport. It’s a very industrial area. Not too pretty to look at.

I thought that was an interesting looking boat. After looking it up at home, apparently it’s a ferry from Fort Lauderdale.

We went back to the room for awhile so Landon could nap. Sophia played on her tablet while I read my book. Once Landon was awake again it was about lunch time, so we grabbed our things and headed back up to the Lido.

You’ll never guess what the kids had for lunch… As much as I tried talking her into trying other things, she just wanted pizza, yet again. Oh well, I guess its vacation so she can eat what she wants. I grabbed a Guy’s burger and fries along with a couple watermelon slices from BI.

I can’t remember what Andrew had for lunch, but after he finished that he went over to see what they had at the Havana bar. He came back with two kinds of empanadas and some kind of coffee cupcake something or other.

And today was the chocolate buffet. They had several desserts out to grab as well as a chocolate fountain with lots of dippers. Sophia and I both wanted a chocolate dipped donut (yum yum!), the slice of cheesecake was also really good, but the other chocolate treat in the cup was much different than I thought it was going to be. I’m not really sure how to describe it, but it ended up being very dense, strong chocolate. Too much for me. But the others were really good!

After lunch Sophia wanted to go back to Camp Carnival. The schedule had Free Play at this time. When we dropped her off, they actually had all of the kids over in the bigger kids room together and they were watching something.

Then on to the ropes course! Andrew stayed with Landon (in the stroller) while I did the course.

It was fun. There were a few spots that got a little scary for a minute, actually, but I did it! :D

Since there was no one over on this end, we let Landon down out of the stroller to run around a little bit. That sure made his day! :D

And of course he had to climb up on the bench, for a little relaxin.

Oh wait, what’s that? Cheerios! Sorry buddy, you already ate them all.

Sophia was playing with the large chess set out here, so Landon had to go check it out, too.

I was really hoping to get a pic in front of the sign here with all four of us, since Sophia didn’t cooperate for the Nassau one, but she was again throwing a little fit and then my husband didn’t want to find someone to get one of all of us, so he just took one of me and the kids. Just my luck. But, at least they both looked at the camera this time!

And that was it in Freeport for us. It was very hot out and there really wasn’t much to do, so we just went back to the ship. I had hoped to be able to get a picture in front of the ship, like we had on our past cruises, but it was blocked off here so that wasn’t possible.

Once we got back through security, we decided to go back up to the Lido to grab a snack, since we didn’t get quite as much at breakfast. Sophia was bummed to see that the towel animals were now gone. I got a bowl of fruit and then noticed that on top of that bar has a large selection of small boxes of cereal. Not sure how I missed those all week, but I grabbed a box of Cheerios for the kids.

After finishing our snack, we went out to the area on the outside of our room. Andrew had snuck out a few times to sit out here, but I hadn’t seen it yet and wanted to check it out. Our room was the second window from the left.

And the view of Freeport from out here:

We didn’t have anything planned for Freeport. I thought we’d just walk around the port area a bit and find our traditional vacation magnet. That morning as I was getting my things together, I discovered that my sunglasses had somehow broke, so I was also on a mission to find a new pair here as well.

As soon as you exit the ship, there is just a very short walk and then you’re at the port shops. First they had some shops that were in actual buildings. We went in the first one and I picked out a pair of sunglasses. We quickly realized that having Sophia walking around in these souvenir shops is a terrible idea, though. She was getting into everything. So I quickly purchased that and we got out of there.

Walking across the street they had the outdoor vendors, so we took a look there and picked out a magnet from one of them. Like Nassau, they asked about us buying other things, but were not pushy when we said no thank you.

Walking to the other side, they had the Fat Tuesday and Senor Frogs:

There were some smaller food stands as well, with lots of seating.

And they had music playing here under the gazebo.

And one last photo on the way out.

We went back to our room and while I got our stuff ready to get off the ship, Andrew ran up to the Lido to grab some coffee. When he got back he said we’d all need to make a stop up there before getting off the ship because there had been an invasion!

Sophia just absolutely freaked out and thought it was the most amazing thing ever. She immediately plopped herself right down and wanted to play with all of them (and thankfully they were rubber banded together so they didn’t fall apart when she picked them up)!

They were everywhere!

Once Thing 1 & 2 had visited each table, they left, and then out came our waiters to do a little dance.

And then a little after that out came Sam I Am and Cat in the Hat.

Cat in the Hat’s tail was too big to move around the tables, so you have to stand it line to see him. And yes, Sophia was tickling his belly… lol

Then the characters started coming out. Out first was Thing 1 and Thing 2. They had a photographer along with each of them, so I wasn’t sure if they were going to say we weren’t allowed to take our own photos, but no it wasn’t a problem at all.

Thing 2 came to our table first. I guess I snapped this pic before she really realized who was standing behind her.

Because I promise she was excited to see them!

I really wasn’t sure how Landon would do. He did ok with the Easter Bunny so I was hopeful he’d be fine with them. And yes, no tears!

He even gave him a high five!

And then Thing 1 stopped by:

He also loved the fluffy table decorations…

It wasn’t long before our food arrived. I ordered the waffles. They were good!

I hadn’t realized, before hearing other tables ordering, that you can order things to go with it, like eggs and bacon or sausage. But that’s ok because there was no way Sophia was going to eat all of this by herself:

They also walked around to all the tables with two different kinds of yogurt parfaits; one like Landon had and a strawberry one. Sophia wanted to try the strawberry one.

After being seated, our waiter introduced himself, took our drink orders and handed us the menu (which was just like a Dr. Seuss book, so cute!).

They also gave each of the kids a coloring page and pack of crayons. Landon doesn’t really color yet, but it kept him busy just having something to play with, so that was nice.

I had ordered Landon the yogurt parfait, which are actually just sitting up there on a table, so the waiter brought that right over for him.

Freeport

This morning was our Dr. Seuss Green Eggs & Ham breakfast at 8:30. We ended up getting over there a little early, but there were already people seated and they brought us to a table right away.

Great review! When we cruise in February 2018 (so far away!) it'll be with our almost 3 year old and 16 month old, so this review is very helpful.

 

 

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Glad I could help! Hope you guys have a great trip.

So agree....a feel good beautiful family review...always gives me wet eye. what it is all about...thank you!!

Aww thanks for reading! :)

Really enjoying your review! Great pics to go with the narrative, :) and your kids are just the cutest.

Thanks so much! :)

Enjoying the review

Thanks for reading!

Almost done with the end of the review. Be back soon!

And there goes our pilot boat:

We were now hungry, so made our way over to grab some dinner. I didn’t get a pic of the kid’s plate, but I’m pretty positive it was yet again pizza for Sophia and a grilled cheese for Landon. I wasn’t crazy about my dinner tonight. I’ve never had veal parmesan, but gave it a try. Can’t say I’m a big fan. The lamb was ok.

Dessert was yummy tonight, though! I believe it was some kind of cherry cake, which was really moist and tasty, and even better with some ice cream.

Then back to our room, where our towel animal was waiting for us! Sophia just loved these towel animals.

Tonight I wanted to attempt going to a show. It was the Hasbro, The Game Show, so I figured it would be a safe one to try out. We still made sure to find a seat in the very back with easy escape access if the kids got cranky. Which, they of course did. But we made it through probably half of the show!

And that was it for us for the night.

Coming up… Freeport!

The Carnival Ecstasy had taken off shortly before us.

There was someone sitting up there in the lighthouse waving at us.

These guys stopped to wave bye to us, too.

Landon was getting heavy on my back, so we grabbed a snack and sat down in the buffet room. Landon was being a little crazy man, though, so we couldn’t sit still for long…

It had been around an hour after dropping Sophia off and was getting close to sail away time, so we thought we’d go ahead and get her because we wanted to watch out on the deck at sail away. So we picked her up and asked her what she did. She wouldn’t give us many details other than she colored and had fun.

So we found a spot back in the water works area. Of course, even though it said sail away at 5:00, it was close to 5:30 before we actually started backing away.

Here we go!

Looks like lots of construction going on over here:

We still had Landon of course, so we found ourselves thinking hmm, now what do we? We checked out the view from there on deck 10 for a while.

Here you can see the start of the bridge:

And then the other side:

Parked next to us was the Luna, which after looking it up at home we discovered is the 2nd largest expedition yacht in the world, owned by a Russian businessman!

And zooming in on the house back behind it, it’s for sale! My future vacation home?! :D

We had now seen everything and were getting hungry. I’m thinking it was probably around noon now. Andrew wanted to go back to the ship for lunch, so we went out to find a taxi back. We again had to wait for another couple to join us and were then on our way. Now this guy took a different way back to port after crossing over the bridge. He went through a residential area and I hadn’t really been paying attention until I heard the other couple say something about this being the poor area, and was a little shocked to see thick barbed wire over a high chain link fence in someone’s backyard. There was also a business with barbed wire as well.

Once back to the port, we made our way back past the pushy vendors and into the security line. I’m not sure exactly how long we waited, but we of course picked the slower of the two lines. Our guy was wanting to talk to everyone, so that slowed it down.

Before getting back on the ship, I really wanted to get a picture of the four of us in front of the Bahamas sign. Of course Sophia was now hungry and cranky and was being a little butt refusing to cooperate for a picture. So this was the best we could get… Oh well.

Once back on the ship, we went straight up to the Lido to grab lunch. I had wanted to try Blue Iguana, so I talked Sophia into getting a taco so we wouldn’t have to wait in multiple lines. Now the BI menu only lists chicken, fish, or pork tacos, but they have beef burritos so I had asked if it would be possible to get a beef taco and he said yes, no problem. I got a beef burrito and some watermelon slices for us, but you can probably guess who claimed those.

So it turns out the beef is a steak rather than ground beef, so Sophia didn’t like it. I wasn’t a huge fan of my burrito either. I’m thinking it might have been the rice. I don’t know, something just had a flavor I wasn’t crazy about. So once Andrew got back with his Guy’s burger, as much as I hate wasting food, I opted to try out the pizza instead. I had thought I read that the pizza on the Sunshine is different than the kind we had on our last two ships, but it seemed the same to me.

Then Andrew grabbed some desserts. I requested a red velvet cupcake. It was good! I’m not sure what the other two desserts he got were.

After lunch, we went back to the room to drop off the stroller and see what we wanted to do. Landon had taken just a short nap in the stroller while we were at the aquarium, so he was ready for another one. Once he was awake again, Sophia decided she wanted to play at Camp Carnival. So we grabbed our stuff and went up there. I honestly wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to do. She’s never been left with anyone other than her grandparents, but she’s not shy so I figured she’d probably do just fine. And as soon as we checked her in, she took off and never looked back! I mentioned to the worker that it was her first time and she asked if we had received one of the phones, which we hadn’t, but after seeing how well she went it she just kind of waved it off and said she thought she would be fine. Ok then. I was a little nervous just leaving her without a way of contacting us, but I knew we wouldn’t be gone for too long and she’d be fine there.

And there’s the front view of the waterfall.

On the opposite side of the sting rays was another swimming pool.

Then finally we made it to Predator Lagoon.

Check out those teeth!

Then we saw the leap of faith slide and stopped to watch for a bit before turning back.

There was one other area we were able to enter with our wristband, the Predator Lagoon. It’s a little complicated figuring out how to get over there with a stroller. This way and then that way, take this elevator and then walk back around this way. But, we finally found the right spot! On the way over you walk under this waterfall that you’ll see the front view of soon.

Then as you continue walking it brings you up to the area you see in the back of the previous picture.