4/2/06

By TLA

• November 22, 2007

In Route: Spring Break "06" from Detroit to Orlando & onto Port Canaveral (a new route/port for us). Also brought along the 15 & 13 year old. Both never flew or cruised, (and one is scared of heights and new adventures as well). Surprisingly they both took to the flight like "peas and carrots"

Boarding: Orlando airport was a little tough to navigate, but found our Royal Caribbean bus, the same time the other 2,800 passengers did. Not as easy as the plane, to taxi, to port, to ship route, but once bags were on the bus and the group loaded, the bus ride to the port was fine. Ok, maybe a little long.

Boarding: Took a little while working our way through the other 2,800 passengers (our newest best friends), but overall not bad. The terminal was nice and the staff was good. Kids were blown away once on board and looked around this big baby-WOW.

April 2nd, 84 degrees and 100% sunshine! What a way to leave the states on a vacation. This is a kid friendly ship and if you want them to get hooked on this cruise thing, this is the class ship to make them a cruise junkie. Mini golf is a favorite of this group as well as Pizza (Cafe Promenade) and Johnny Rocket's onion rings.

April 3rd, Coco Cay, Bahamas was a great sunny 76 degree day, even though the beach was a little on the packed side. Get off the ship first to pick the premium spots (we didn't). Enjoyed renting the foam floating beach mat ($10) and looking over the fish, that are looking back at us. At one point we were walking through the coral areas not paying attention and just happen to look down to see that I was surrounded by fish looking me over, maybe 35 to 40 of them. That will scare the crap out of you, especially when the fish are licking their lips....... that part about licking their lips sounded good anyway. There was an Eel near by as well, so it was time to take a trip to another location less Eel-ly.

April 4th, was a day at sea, in route to St. Thomas. 83 and a little rain here and there. My thinking was this was a vacation day, but the kids wanted to hang with us most of the time so we hit a lot of activities, maybe 60% of them. If your kids like to be out on there own and hang with other kids, you'll be able to have a little more "own" vacation time.

April 5th, 83 degrees and a little rain in the forecast, but it never showed up. At St Thomas took a tour around the island, Megan's Bay and Blackbeard's Hill. Walked around town after Blackbeard's Hill and did a little shopping grabbed a bit at the Subway sandwich shop (stay away from that place). The day went by very quickly and everyone had a good time (except for the Subway sandwiches), would like to come back again.

April 6th, and again 83 degrees and a little rain in the forecast, but it failed to showed up. Took an island tour which was good and bad. Seen some of the island, Orient Beach and then some local shopping areas. Here's the details, in some areas they use an inland lakes as the trash/dump land fill (sad), at Orient Beach my 13 year old daughter discovered what a naked 78 year old male sun bather looks like, and the bathrooms at the local shopping & gathering area should have a sign that says "Enter at your own risk", in other words DON'T GO IN THERE!!!!

April 6th and 7th, partly cloudy and 84 degrees. Both were "at sea' days. Kids had a great time, great meals, great explorations.

Windjammer Cafe, Johnny Rockets & Promenade Cafe: Everything was excellent, lines a little long once in a while, but it's spring break, to be expected.

Rhapsody Dining: The food will spoil you rotten and is beyond excellent. Service was a little less than the Navigator of the Seas cruise we first took.

Savory Theater, Studio B: All the shows were great especially the ice shows.

Staff: Becky Thomson the Cruise Director was great as well as 99% of the other staff.

Departing: Always a sad day! Bus trip back was fine, airport packed as expected.

Homeward Bound: Orlando to Detroit was uneventful, gave the kids time to reflect on a whole new experience and a world only seen on TV. They are already for another cruise trip, "Spring break 07", this time Tampa bound, they just don't know it yet.