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There’s an old phone booth along the way back to the pier.

Here’s a photo so the ship from the pier. There were still tons of people getting off the ship around 11-11:30 when we were heading back. I’m not sure how you could engineer the pool area to have more chairs but that place had to be packed by about noon.

This shows how far the Aqua Racer hangs off the ship. Cool, huh?

Since the pool was so crowded, we walked back over to the kids splash area. The bucket on top of their climbing structure did a major soaking job every time it tipped over. There was even a small waterslide.

A few infrared photos of the boardwalk that leads to the lighthouse.

Lighthouse

There is a dining area right by the pool and food can be paid for the your key card, but we wanted to head back up to the ship to get a shower and a free lunch. Here’s a picture of our happy, soggy family.

We the wildlife area on the way back. There mostly just colorful birds and a lot of pretty plants.

The cabanas look pretty amazing but they should be for the price.

I took a lot of photos with my infrared camera as well because I had a feeling that the foliage would look pretty neat in infrared. You’ll notice some similarities to the regular photos because I took a lot of them from the same spots.

I’m happy with how they turned out, especially the color infrared version of the whole pool.

Next stop was the pool.

It was about 10:00 and the kids wanted to get in a little freshwater swim. Unfortunately, there was not an unclaimed chair in sight, so we ended up dropping our stuff right next to the edge of the pool by some greenery and swimming right there. I also got my big camera out of the locker and took some photos of the pool area. The landscaping work around the pool area is really amazing.

Our little corner of the pool.

The pool has a shallow “beach” side.

Here’s a map of the island itself

My first goal was to find a locker to put my camera in so it didn’t end up at the bottom of the lagoon if my paddleboarding attempt goes awry. We found a circle of lockers at the pool area and it was really easy to rent one. They just scanned your seapass (lockers are a $5 charge) and they gave you a key on a plastic band that went around your wrist. You could come and get things out of the locker as you needed them or even take your items to a different set of lockers (I didn’t realize there was another set of lockers right next to the lagoon). That being taken care of, we were on our way to the lagoon rentals, until a passing rainstorm threatened to slow down that progress. Here’s a video of the rain as we took cover near one of the shops.

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Once the short-lived storm passed through, we finally made it to the lagoon. We arrived about 8:50. Maybe it was the early time or the rainstorm but they had plenty of rental equipment to go around. They also had kayaks for $25 and electric float boats for $45 (looked like paddle boats but with a motor). They also had two kinds of paddleboards. He said the white were for the advanced paddlers (they looked more like surfboards) and the green were for beginners (looked a little wider and harder to tip over.) After putting on life jackets that they provided, DD and I took a green one and DH and DS took a white one. They quickly paddled back for a green one too.

Here’s a photo of the lagoon and some of what it had to offer

Paddleboarding itself was a fun experience, but to me it was just like kayaking except you didn’t get to sit down. It was a bonus though that DH and I both found a way to switch places with the kids (without falling into the lagoon) to let them paddle while we sat down. Here’s a video of the grownups being chaffoured around by the kids.

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There was more lagoon around a little inlet by the lighthouse but DD and I were pretty worn out after a half hour so we took our board in and walked over to check out the beach. DH and DS were only about 10-15 minutes behind us on turning in their board, so we all decided to take a dip in the surf at the beach.

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We all enjoyed the beach. It has decent waves for bobbing around and the grade wasn’t too steep. Since Patrick isn’t a strong swimmer yet, I brought along his puddle jumper so he could go further into the water with the rest of us. I felt a weird sting on my chest while we were swimming but it didn’t bother me so I thought maybe it was sand in my swimsuit irritating that spot. The zipliners buzzed right overhead so we waved at them as they went by. After about 20 minutes in the water, I noticed that the lifeguard’s flag had changed from green to blue. I wonder what that means. We spent about 15 more minutes in the water and then hopped out to dry off. Come to find out that the blue flag means “dangerous ocean life” so that probably was a little jelly that got me in the water. But with 4 of us out there for 30-40 minutes, I was the only one to come out with any irritation and it was very mild. Must have been a little one. It reminded me of the part on Finding Nemo where Dory finds a jelly, “And I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine, and he shall be my squishy- ouch!”

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FYI- They had clamshells on the back row at the beach and I think they were about $30-35 to rent. Those would have been nice if we were spending the whole day on the beach.

Wow, you are extremely methodical. I am too, but in an old fashioned sort of way.....I hand write out lists. Then I highlight each task as I accomplish it. Raised in the '70's....what can I say. I still have a use (and joy) of hand-writing! Really enjoying your review. I suspect I'll pick up a few pointers from you.

Haha, I like my paper lists too but I tend to misplace them when my phone is usually with me all the time. There is definitely something satisfying about a crossed off list though!

Hmmm. I'm looking at the photos of your shower on Escape and it doesn't seem to have the "footbar" that is mounted about 12 inches up from the floor to assist us ladies in shaving our legs like what we had on the Getaway. Not happy about this if that is indeed the case. I'm sure you stated it earlier, but was this a balcony cabin?

I don't recall that there was a footbar, but I wasn't specifically looking. Yes, this is a balcony cabin.

Here’s the Freestyle Daily for Day 4- Sorry, I forgot to photograph them before I started highlighting! Can you tell I like movies? I also LOVE that NCL put a tear edge and a folding crease on the Freestyle so it's so easy to carry around with me! It's the little things in life.

Day 4- Harvest Caye

We like to stay active on port days, so when I saw we had a beach day on Harvest Caye for Belize, I went ahead and booked us on the paddle boards. I’ve never tried paddle boards before, but I saw photos of kids sitting on the front while adults paddled and that seemed like a fun family idea. We woke up at 7:20 (we’re really getting good at this sleeping in thing- hehe), but when I looked at our tickets that NCL left for the paddleboards, I realized that the instructions said to meet at 8:20 and the excursion was a 20 minute walk from port, and we dock at 8:00. That seemed a little early for 9:00 paddleboarding, so as much as I strive to be punctual, this one was going to be a stretch. We headed to the buffet to grab some breakfast and fill up our water bottles.

NCL Newbie Cruise Tip- I found that Margaritaville on deck 17 was a great place to fill up our water bottles before excursions. It was much less crowded than the Garden Cafe. And the proper etiquette for filling up water bottles is to fill up the cups provided with water and then transfer that to the water bottle.

Speaking of water bottles, we had a few different varieties that we brought on our trip. As you’ve seen earlier, Patrick claimed the Platypus style water backpack, Kasiah choose the water bottle that doubled as a sprayer so you could spray yourself in the face on hot days (something like this), I brought my RTIC (generic YETI) 30 oz cup for keeping some ice handy and Nathan carried the wide-mouth collapsible water bottle which we also used to refill water into the RTIC cup to get it cold. I chose the wide mouth version so we could fit ice in it if we wanted to. He liked that it had a carabiner clip on it, so he could just clip it to his backpack and when you’re done with it, you just roll it up and the clip keeps it in a small little ball.

Yeah, I buy too much pre-cruise crap, I know. But they really did all work out great so here's to feeding your own cruise-crap addiction. You're welcome.

Back to Harvest Caye-- An alternate Harvest Caye excursion, that I heard good things about was the cave tubing. The zip line also looked like a blast. We’ll probably try some more adventurous excursions when Patrick is a little older.

They announced the all clear to leave the ship at 8:10 so we were able to leave about 8:20. They were not kidding about the walk. There is a very long pier to travel before you get to mainland Harvest Caye. They did have some shuttles running if you were traveling with someone with mobility issues.

Here’s the pier from the boat

Thank you so much for doing this review! As much as I loved reading the adventures of DougOut and CruiseLifeRick with their no-kid freedom, I was really hoping to find a family themed report before our cruise in October. And it just so happens that our kids are the same age as yours so this is very helpful! I'm so glad to hear that they enjoyed the kids clubs.

This ship seems to be well suited for families and kid-free travel, which is pretty cool. They have a fun, party atmosphere but the ropes course, slides and kids club gives families lots to do too. I don't know what they do in kids club that they love so much but they must be doing something right!

Here’s what the resort itself looks like. They also had a pool that you could pay extra to swim in, but we just stuck to the beach.

Patrick enjoyed his personal water backpack (here's the amazon link if you want one).

Kasiah thinks she may have gotten a little sting on her leg from a small jellyfish, but she’s the only one that noticed a sting. We did however start having trouble with sand fleas or biting flies once we got out of the water. I guess that’s why not a lot of people were hanging out by the loungers. The bug spray helped but we were about ready to leave by the time we dried off anyways. It looks like this might be a local hangout because we met a Mom and her two sons who lived in Roatan and were making it a beach day. From their website, it looks like on your own, the charge to visit the beach is $15/adult, $5/kid.

Norma was waiting for us near the food hut and it was just a short 15-20 minute trip back to the dock. She even dropped us off in port, right in front of the ship. We were so happy with our experience with this excursion. Both Daniel Johnson’s staff and Norma were great people to spend the day with and we were left with some unique and amazing memories!

Soda Package

Back on the ship, we decide to catch a late lunch at the buffet. A note about the soda beverage package. This didn’t seem as good as a value on NCL as it was on RC. For one, Nathan prefers Coke products and NCL only offers Pepsi. We knew that when we were going in, but if he had know how difficult it would be to get a soda, he would not have purchased it. In his experience, the bars we were almost always slow, it was difficult to get consistent soda service in the dining rooms and there were no drink machines- those self service machines on RCL make it very easy to fill up when you need to, rather than waiting in line with UBP crowd.

As we were eating lunch, I did notice that the kids and I were popping up with red spots. They didn’t hurt or itch but they were definitely from the sand flea bites. The red marks lasted about 12 hours so I warned the kids club that it wasn’t a rash later that night so they wouldn’t worry.

DD’s arm

A few bites on Patrick’s forehead

The kids and I heard the wobble playing in the Atrium so we stopped at the line dance class. The events team on this ship are a lot of fun for all ages.

We had Tappenyaki reservations for dinner which I was very excited about! It was loud in that restaurant but the chefs put on a great show. The appetizers felt a bit rushed, but the main course was amazing and there was soooo much food. The kids ordered off the main dining room kids menu so they were no charge and the chef was nice enough to give them their own bowls of rice. DD didn’t care for the garlic flavor in the rice, but I thought it was great. The steak was perfectly cooked and seasoned! I tried not to take too many photos because I didn’t want to distract from the show but here’s a quick photo of our chef and the green tea ice cream dessert.

After dinner, we managed to wobble our full bellies out the door and the kids asked if they could go to kids club. They didn’t want to miss a day! Nathan and I checked out the piano bar but it looked like the line was out the door. Then we ran across Deal or No Deal in the Atrium and that was packed too. We decided to just relax in the room instead.

Pick up from kid club in the evenings is very easy. Just bring your key card and your child’s card and give the counselor the password that you set up at registration. Then they call your child, they also double check his name before he leaves and you’re on your way. Kasiah kept her own card in a small shoulder bag, which they left her keep in a basket on the sports court when they were playing games. Late night child care is available after 10:30 and that’s $6 for the first child/hour and $4 per sibling/hour.

Next up, Harvest Caye!

Parrot Tree Beach

This is a private resort so there were no vendors, just a helpful gentleman from the food hut that came over to ask if we needed any food or drinks. The water is very warm and calm, it comes into the lagoon through an inlet.

It amazed me that we could just walk up and hang out on any of the cabanas by the water.

The water was clear and beautiful

Pretty coconut trees

Loving your review. I'm glad I'm not the only one OCD about organizing.

We'll be back on the Escape in September. This time doing the Eastern Caribbean.

Yup, we are members of the OCD travel club! The Eastern Caribbean is beautiful. Have a great time!

These guys can turn their heads all the way around.

When we had all held them, the guides set the sloths back in the trees to “hang out.”

Hey buddy.

Here’s a pretty driveway on the way to Parrot Tree beach.

Nice view!

Here’s the entrance to Parrot Tree Beach where we stopped for a little beach break. Nathan had started to get my cold and was feeling a little crumby so we didn’t figure on staying too long, but we had a nice time.

We lost power last night due to some summer storms, but here's some more sloth photos because they're awesome.

They’re having a little chat.

You get to hold them for about 2-3 minutes and then they’re passed onto the next person.

Patrick was getting a good hug.

High three?!

This one was getting a little sleepy.

I was really excited about my new friend! This seriously made my year.

DD’s gopro action was a little shaky but it looks like the sloth is playing peek a boo with her in the beginning.

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We so need to do this excursion, we weren't going to get off in Roatan as we'd been twice before but now I've seen your review, I'm in.

Thank you so much for the info on the sloth experience. We are on this cruise in Sept and have just got in touch with Daniel to book.

I'm so excited that you both enjoyed the excursion photos. We really had an amazing time!

How long of an excursion was Daniel Johnson’s Monkey & Sloth Hangout?

We were instructed to meet around an hour after the ship docked so that ended up being about 10am for us and we were back to the boat by 1:30 but the timeline was really guided by our preferences. Norma was willing to stop where we wanted to stop and stay at the beach as long as we felt comfortable but since DH was feeling his cold, we decided to get back to the ship in time to catch a late lunch and relax.

Loving your review and your pictures are AAAMAAAAZZZZZIIIINNNG. I will be on my first NCL Escape (NCL period) cruise in a mere 138 days. Looking so forward to it ;).

Yay! I'm so excited for you! This is a great ship!

There’s a bird on your head

We borrowed Dad’s hat because that made a more comfortable landing pad (for Patrick at least)

A little reward

Then, we moved over to the ever popular three toed sloth area. My daughter was the first one to get some sloth love. You’re instructed to stand and hold your hands in a sort of cradle that will support the sloth’s rear end. They they set the arm claws over your shoulders and his little legs wrap around your waist.

That face!

Our guide would sometimes coax the monkeys where he wanted them to go with sunflower seeds.

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Here’s the monkey checking out his pocket. Yup, they do make excellent pickpockets.

His thoughtful face

I believe this guy is the spider monkey. Apparently people try to keep them as pets but they get very protective of their owners so that they’ll become aggressive towards other family members. Hence why they end up at the animal sanctuary.

This pretty macaw would say “Hello” or “Hola” when prompted.

Once at Daniel’s Johnson’s we paid for our tour and sat down to wait for a larger group on a catamaran to start clear out. They have wifi so you can check your phone while you wait, but we had left all that in the van because I remembered the warnings that the monkeys like to grab things. I had been warned to take off glasses, jewerly and purses so all I brought with us was the cash for the tour (and tip for our guide), the big camera and the gopro for some video.

We started out looking at a few different animals. This was the agouti. These little guys were described as the island’s equivalent to rabbits because they breed very quickly!

I got a kick out of this raccoon that someone had been keeping as a pet and gave to Daniel. He had no interest in being out in the hot sun. Plus, he’s noctural.

Here’s our buddy the capuchin monkey from outside the cage. I didn’t realize that we’d be getting up close and personal with him later.

Tasting our tour guide’s fingers before he gets a chance at us. Just kidding, there was no biting involved.

Our family and another family jumped into the cage with the two older monkeys. It’s funny because the monkeys didn’t like you to know that they were jumping on you, so when you turned your back is when they hopped on your shoulders. Surprise, there’s a monkey on your head!

Day 3- Roatan Honduras and Sloths!!!!

Roatan Excursions

I started out my research in Roatan looking at the excursions that NCL offered. The Gumbalimba Preserve and Animal Sanctuary looked like fun but the cost for the 4 of us was $276 or $226 w/credit. The highlights looked like snorkeling and hanging out with the monkeys. A friend of ours had a great time at Big French Key and Maya Key looked beautiful online, but when I saw the facebook page for Daniel Johnson’s Monkey and Sloth hangout, I knew I had to check that out. Those sloths were sooooo cute!

Daniel Johnson’s Monkey & Sloth Hangout

The reason why we chose to go with Daniel Johnson is because I didn’t see any other excursions that included sloths and I’m not going to lie, hugging a sloth would be the highlight of my entire vacation. I saw they were recommended several times on cruisecritic and the reviews on tripadvisor were overwhelmingly positive. When I messaged them on facebook, they emailed back with several package options, but the one that fit us best included an island tour (driving around to see a few of the sights), the Monkey and Sloth hangout and a stop at Parrot Tree beach for $30/person including transportation. Compared to the $226 discounted ship excursion, that was an amazing deal. And we’re so happy with our choice!

CRUISE NEWBIE TIP-Before we left the ship, I took a photo of our port authority phone number and made sure I had a charger for my phone just to be safe. If we were to get into any trouble getting back to the ship on time, that’s a handy phone number to have! I've heard that if you call and they know you're on your way, there's a chance that they'll get the ship to wait for you, at least for a short time. Hoping no one would ever need this, but luck favors the prepared.

Our instructions from Daniel Johnson’s explained how to walk through port and we were supposed to meet our car right outside of the port gate. Sure enough, before we even walked through the gate, I could see a lady holding the Daniel Johnson’s sign waiting for us. She checked us off her list and introduced us to Norma would would be our driver today. We followed Norma on a short walk up the hill to her minivan and loaded up! I wasn’t sure if it would be just us or several families but Norma was pretty much our personal chauffeur for the day. She started out by giving us some background on the island. They’re about 40 miles off the coast of Honduras. The island was claimed by the British for a while so that’s why most of the signs are in English. Most residents are employed by fishing or tourism.

Here’s a photo of the Escape in port as we started our drive.

We drove through some pretty little beaches, I think it was West End or West Bay.

A restaurant or bar on the water

Norma mentioned that we could get out and walk around- take some photos or check out the shops, but Patrick was already starting to doze off, probably drowsy from the Dramamine, so we decide to just catch the sights from the van and keep on the with tour. We drove around for 45 minutes or so and then we arrived at Daniel’s!

So, when we left off it was midnight at the end of day 2 and Patrick had just tossed his cookies all over his bed. Sadly, this is not the first time we’ve dealt with him being sick in the stateroom before, but the first time he had gotten a cold and gagged while coughing- poor kid. This was a bit more of a mystery. I pulled off all the sheets and blankets and rolled them into a ball and put that by the door. There are extra sheets and a blanket in some drawers under the sofa so I cleaned everything up and remade the bed. DS and I sat together in the bathroom for a while, but he seemed fine, just sleepy. It was hard to miss the rocking of the boat as we sat together, so I went ahead and got out the previously unused kids seabands and the Motion Ease medication. I read the instructions on the Motion Ease and it said it’s safe for all ages and just put a few drops on your finger and rub behind the ears to help with the inner ear motion symptoms. I put some on Patrick’s ears and the smell was really nice too. After about 15 minutes, I tucked him back into his fresh bed and hoped for the best.

Ok, enough suspense! We made it to the morning with no more issues, so I think it was a bit of motion sickness, possibly crossed with too many late night snacks. Whoo, thank goodness! Nathan wanted to give DS a bit of the kid’s dramamine in the morning too just to be safe, especially since we anticipated a bit of a car ride to our excursion. We brought Patrick some Cheerios and he seemed back to his old self.

Here’s the Freestyle Daily for Day 3.

Thanks for all the comments everyone! I'll keep the review going today in between some other errands!

Fellow South Carolinian following along and getting excited for my upcoming Escape cruise. This time it will just be myself and 20 yr old DS, so lots of late nights and dance party music for us. Great review so far with excellent pics, looking for ward to more!

This ship had a great party atmosphere and tons of music. I bet your 20 yr old will love it!

Loving your review and your wonderful photographs! I had my first cruising experience recently on The Epic, and due to all the great reviews I've read on here, I have the Escape at the top of my list for my next one... hopefully next year.

Awesome! You'll love it!

The kids went to kids club after dinner and Nathan and I enjoyed walking around and touring this ship. Here’s a quick photo I grabbed of the adult’s pool with my phone. The colored lights looked very pretty at night.

It was windy this evening and the ship was rocking back and forth a little. Not as bad as we’ve had it on other cruises but enough to make you zig zag a little while walking down the hall. The windbreakers on the decks though made it so you didn’t get the full blast of the wind unless you walked up to the open portions.

We picked the kids up from kids club around 10:00 and our first towel animal was waiting for us! I’m thinking puppy?

Here’s how the bed arrangement works for the 4 person room.

We had the steward leave the pullman bed down during the day because the kids liked to use it as a hangout spot, but at night DD slept in the pullman and DS slept on the sofa bed.

The kids were super excited about tomorrow because we had an excursion planned to go see the monkeys and sloths and we had watched videos of sloths for the past 3 months getting hyped up for our opportunity to hug one.

I was sleeping soundly like a baby rocked in her bed, until I woke up to some faint, but urgent calls of “Mommy, mommy” and found that DS had thrown up all over his sofa bed. Oy vey. What was going on? Did he catch the dreaded noro? Did he eat something that didn’t agree with him? Would we make it on our trip in Honduras tomorrow? Dun dun dun...To be continued. I didn’t tell you there would be cliffhangers. :)

Looking forward to more! We sail on this fabulous ship on 9/2 - my birthday cruise! Question about O'Sheehans - so it is a free restaurant? Even the late night menu that includes wings?

Yes, I believe so. Even though we never tried it for late night, I'm pretty sure you could stop by any time and order whatever. Everything was free.

Beautiful photos!

Thank you!

Meet and Greet

About 12:10, I realized that we were a few minutes late to the CC Meet and Greet at the Brewhouse so DD and I rushed over to check it out. Tripleboom did a great job of arranging everything and presenting the prizes! This was by far the nicest meet and greet that I’ve ever been to. The NCL officers went around and introduced themselves, servers brought around appetizers and different beers to try! Also the turnout was great! We had some fun conversations and I got to meet the parents of a little girl that DD had made friends with at kids club last night. They were from Australia and had traveled 30 hours to sail on the Escape! We had more fun with them before the week was over.

While we were enjoying the meet and greet, DH was getting sucked in by the deck 8 watch sale. The time changes on the ship to local time throughout the cruise and Nathan lost his to do list while packing, so his watch was sitting on the kitchen counter at home. The good news is that our $100 balcony credit almost covered the cost of the fancy new waterproof watch that he was wearing when he came back to our room!

This kids decided to try afternoon Kids club. A note about the 10-12 yr old group. They usually meet on the sports deck and even though my daughter is generally not a sports kid, she really enjoyed the games that they picked to play. Those counselors are top notch. That being said, the sports deck is way hotter mid-afternoon than it is in the evenings after dinner so DD decided that mid-day kids club was not for her. She did go every evening though by her own choice. And at 10-12 yrs old kids have the ability to check themselves out of kids club if they’ve been there for more than 2 hours. They also don’t need a parent to check themselves in. You can choose not to give them this privilege, which I was pretty on the fence about because I was getting a little lost on the ship myself, but we decided to leave it- I guess it really depends on the kid. Most evenings, we picked her up anyways, but I think she felt pretty proud of the fact that we trusted her to go up to the sports deck and check herself in, while we walked DS to deck 5 to the 6-9 yr old group.

While the kids were in Splash Academy this afternoon, DH and I hit the fitness center to work off a little bit of those late evening snacks. The fitness center is really well equipped and it has huge ocean view windows so you can watch the ocean as you’re on the elliptical and treadmill. They also have weight machines and a few free weights. DH said that it could get very busy in the early mornings but mid-day we were always able to get a machine.

Some Notes about Free Dining

NCL NEWBIE GUIDE-

When I was first researching the Escape, I had a hard time telling what restaurants were free and which were for charge. I found this helpful dining guide on the NCL website, but here's my quick summary to help out those other NCL Newbies! Free dining includes:

• The Manhattan Room (deck 7)- larger dining room with live music. Open for dinner only.
  
• Taste and Savor (deck 6)- smaller dining rooms but with same menu as Manhattan. Open for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
  
• O' Sheehan's (deck 7)- Irish themed restaurant with casual dining. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and late night snacks. Open 24 hours.
  
• Garden Cafe (deck 16)- Buffet style dining. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks in between.
  

With freestyle dining, you don’t have to participate in formal night, but this is my once a year opportunity to get a good photo of my family so I told them to be prepared for one night of dressing up. It’s funny how for our first cruise, we went out and bought Nathan two suits, the next cruise he says “I bet I can get away with bringing just one” and this course it was like, “so I can’t wear shorts?”. I’ll take what I can get though and it was nice not carrying the garment bag. Photos for formal night start on stairs around 5:25 and I was right there waiting. I wanted to get a photo before they had a chance to dip chocolate ice cream on their nice clothes.

Here’s our family cruise photo and the one $25 photo that I purchased from the ship’s photographers.

NCL NEWBIE CRUISE TIP- If it was too busy to do photo on formal night, the photographers were available near the staircase and fancy chandelier pretty much every day.

Tonight was our reservation for the Manhattan Room, the larger main dining room. We enjoyed the live music and to me, the acoustics were much better than Taste the night before, so the general noise level didn’t seem as loud. DH was asked to remove his hat in several restaurants, including Taste and Manhattan Room, but we saw people with shorts and flip flops so apparently those can make it in. I doubt they want to turn people away as long as you’re not trying to place your napkin in your lap over your swim trunks. The baguettes were a highlight of any dinner but they disappeared pretty quickly at our table. By comparison, RC would offer you all the breads but just give you the one you wanted, which I actually prefer to a basket of breads where the favorites disappear before I could grab one (those kids are fast!) I remember having the salmon for dinner which was delicious but I’m afraid I was too famished to remember to grab any photos, but here’s a few of the Caesar salad, Patrick's PB&J (he tried everything on the kid’s menu once) and the marinated pineapple dessert- yum!

The kids weren’t too dirty after dinner so we stopped by the chandelier with my camera so I could grab a few quick photos of just the kids!

I love how the candelier changes colors!

Day 2- Sea Day

It was so wonderful to sleep in on our first sea day! Of course, sleeping for us is around 7:00am. Better than our 5:00am alarm during the week! After rolling out of bed, we stopped at the buffet for breakfast. The sheer variety is what kept us at the Garden Cafe for breakfast all week. And it was always quick to get in and out and on with your day. Favorites for the week were eggs benedict for DH, omelets for DS, Cheerios for DD, chocolate croissants for me, and those circular hashbrown things were a favorite for everyone.

One of my favorite Garden Cafe breakfast plates

I did miss some of the breakfast items from RC buffet, specifically fried rice (yes, I think fried rice makes an amazing breakfast), but all and all were were pretty satisfied with the buffet!

Our next stop was the mini golf course!

The kids enjoyed the course and it seemed to get lots of use throughout the week!

Pool Deck

Around 8:30, the kids and I checked out the splash pad. It was tough waiting until 10am for the waterslides to open. Even the slide in the splash area stays closed until 10. The line for slides started around 9:45 and we didn’t have anything else pressing to do, so we joined in.

The enclosed tube made DD nervous, but the yellow one was just her speed so she waited in that line, while my daredevil son and I tried out the Aqua Racer! The yellow slide line moved a lot fast than our Aqua Racer line which stayed busy the whole day. DS and I did about 3 slides in 1 hour (1 time down the family slide and 2 down the Aqua racer) while DD got 5 slides in 1 hour (just family slide.) The Aqua loop slide line moved faster than the Aqua Racer one. The Aqua loop was a big 'ol NOPE for me. Over the course of the week, I only saw one person have to use the Aqua loop escape hatch, but I think the tube slide was more my speed. By 11am, there were lines everywhere and it was hard to tell where to start, so we headed back to the room to get ready for lunch. In case you’re wondering, the height requirement is over 40” for yellow and tube slides.

This is our view from waiting in line. Kids pool directly below, splash pad on the left with Aqua racer slide above that. Yellow family slide on the right with Aqua loop above that. Adult pool behind that striped ceiling building.

We tried lunch at buffet but I found it kind of meh. Not as much variety in the options through the week. The long line of stations meant that you had to walk the entire length of the cafe to see all the options. I missed the “islands” that RC used in their buffet. It seemed to help with some of the congestion. I do however LOVE that they have a real handwashing station at the Garden Cafe. With water and soap and everything! And of course there’s the ever catchy washy washy song. I do appreciate NCL’s commitment to good hand hygiene!

Awesome start ... I am a planning freak (colour coded excel spreadsheets and trip binder) so I am loving how organized you are.

Yay! Spreadsheet lovers unite!