Vacation~Cruise 2016~Part One

This year we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday with a family cruise. There were 17 of us total that were able to make it. Friday, the 24th, we flew to Fort Lauderdale and headed to our hotel. The kids have been talking about this vacation almost every day since we told them about it. They were so excited to fly on an airplane. From the second we got to our terminal, Hayes loved watching the planes out the window.

Finally it was time to get moving. Sam was a little nervous but every one else was excited.

We didn't tell the kids Leah was meeting us there until we were about to board. They were so happy to see her and couldn't believe it was her.

Sam had a tight grip on the seat chair for a little while but he ended up relaxing after a while.

Hayes would yell about the things he was seeing. If the plane did a little drop, he would squeal like he was on a roller coaster...it was so cute!

Finally we made it to FLL and my parents met us at the airport. I don't have any pictures but it was cute to see all three of these guys take off running towards them. We grabbed a taxi and headed to the hotel. We had a mini van and the kids thought it was so dirty.

We settled in at the hotel and then headed out for some dinner. The hotel my parents were at was right next to the restaurant we went to so we went in to hang out with them for a little bit before heading back for bed.

Saturday morning we woke up and were able to see the port from our balcony.

After breakfast, we headed over to start the boarding process. My mom made everyone these matching shirts to wear the day we boarded. Unfortunately I don't think one picture was taken of everyone in their shirts together.

She also made us girls these matching visors...

Once we boarded, we grabbed some lunch and then went to our rooms to change in to our bathing suits. My mom also made these awesome coozies for everyone!

Eventually we had to head to our muster stations to run through the emergency drill and that was a nightmare. I have been on several cruises before and it has never been this bad. It turned out people were trying to skip this drill but that only hurts everyone else who is following directions. We had to wait in this cramped space that had to be at least 100 degree for 45 minutes. If it had been a second longer, I am pretty sure there would have been a riot. I almost just walked us right out of there. The kids were miserable but held it together. They started chanting "Let us go! Let us go!".

Because of the long muster, we missed getting to watch the boat leave port. That is one of my favorite things. It also put a huge damper on the "Sail Away Party"...not many people were ready to celebrate right away and the deck was pretty empty. We stayed for a minute but then had to head to our rooms to get ready for dinner.

A couple of months ago, I set up online to have my dad's room decorated for his birthday. I was so mad when we got to our room and saw that they had decorated MY room instead. UGH! I think what ended up happening was that I set it up by the name he goes by which is his middle name. But his reservation was booked through his first name and the company couldn't find the information I gave them so they did it in my room instead of contacting me to clarify.

Sunday was a day at sea. We woke up, ate breakfast, went to the pool, took the kids to the kids club for a little while, worked out, ate some more, and then got ready for dinner to eat some more. This dinner night was a formal dress night...I would say we went semi-formal to more casual.

Every night was full of shenanigans with this crew. I think there might have been ONE night out of the whole week that food or drinks were not spilled on some one or some thing. We were a hot mess.

We had two tables for our group. The adult table consisted of my parents, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and Becca/Tommy...occasionally it would switch between Leah and Reese too. Our table was my family of five and my cousin, her husband, and her son with Leah/Becca/Tommy switching in and out.

This night had a Rock Band type of show. It was the best night in the way of shows...minus the part where one of the kids sneezed on the back of a mans head and another one fell backwards over one row of the stadium seating on to a lady in front of them.

Finally it was bed time and we were all asleep pretty fast.