The Cruise: Day 8 and final thoughts

Well. Day 8 we woke up and had breakfast in the dining room and then got off the ship and went home.

Some final thoughts on the cruise. I loved it, would love to do another cruise! I think it is a great vacation to do with young kids. And it was perfect that we didn't have to deal with flying anywhere, yet we got to see some new places.

Kids club: Camp Carnival is the official name as Judah likes to remind me! I think that this made the cruise for us. On the days that we were out at sea I can't imagine not having the kids club to take the kids to. There is only so much you can do in a little cruise ship room and the swimming and mini golf are awesome but with the little ones it only holds their attention for so long. They gave us a schedule on the first day for the whole cruise. Here's a picture of part of one days schedule:

So they had tons of fun activities planned for the kids and the boys loved it and often asked to go there.



We had an assigned dinner time of 6:00. Every night we were able to walk right into the dinning room and to our assigned table. The people that didn't have an assigned time had to wait in line to be seated. I can see the ease of not having to be to dinner at a certain time, but in our case it worked out great for us to have a schedule and we also had the same waiters every night. And they were AWESOME!


They were so great with our kids! If our boys ordered meat or something that needed to be cut, they would cut our kids food for them, Iputu (the bottom one) often fed our boys bites to get them to eat more dinner, and he made them animals out of their napkins and had origami animals waiting for them at their seat a few nights. I can not say enough positive things about these guys. They made dinner so much more enjoyable for us! Our kids really liked them and talked about them a lot. I still hear the boys mention their names while they're playing "cruise ship" sometimes.


A few quick details for anyone interested:
~We were on the Carnival Spirit.
~We were on the Riviera deck, which is the bottom passenger deck, and we were in rooms 1191 and 1195. I was worried about feeling claustrophobic on the bottom deck, but we were well above water level and the way the ship is set up I definitely didn't feel like I was in the dungeon or anything!
~We had oceanview rooms and the inside of our rooms looked just like this. Justin's mom had a room and the big boys slept with her. One on the couch that turned into a twin sized bed and one in bed with her. There was a bunk type bed that came down from the ceiling but I didn't feel like the boys were old enough to be safe on that. Jax was in with us and his crib did take up a lot of the free space in our room. This was definitely a vacation where you put your clothes away and stashed your suitcases under the bed because there was no place to put your suitcases if you wanted to just live out of the suitcase instead of unpacking.
~ I wish I could remember how much we (well, actually Justin's mom very generously paid for the cruise. Thank you Grandma Cindy!)paid for the cruise. I think it was in the high $500's, and I think Jax was free because he was under 2 and then the first 2 people per room were full price and the third (in Justin's moms room) was 1/2 price. Or the kids were half price. Not sure how that went. Well, I started the trip writing down everything I ate because I was curious if we would get our moneys worth. But I stopped by about the second day. Because seriously, let's just take me and Justin for example: A hotel for 7 nights would be at least $100 a night, so right there we're up to $700. Then add in a 3 course meal every night (appetizer, main course, and dessert), and we're talking good food. Lobster, steak, etc. I think at a regular restaurant our bill would have been at least $100 a night for our dinners, so that's another $700 right there. And then I can stop adding because for room and dinner we've already surpassed the cost of the cruise. And that's not even counting other meals or other activities like mini golf and the night shows. I think cruises are a great deal! We did book this cruise a year in advance so we got their early saver discount, but they run deals all the time. I've been keeping an eye out for our next cruise destination!



And I'll leave you with a few picture Cohen took with my camera on the cruise. Not bad for a 2 year old huh?





Thanks for reading every little detail about our cruise!

The Cruise: Day 7

Another "mostly" day at sea with a little bit of Victoria at night.


We were all tired by this point! Judah took a really good sleep in! One of the family activities was a build a bear type thing in the kids club. We're not big fans of stuffed animals, but we let the kids do this. Cohen made a frog with a firemans costume and Judah made a bear with a soccer costume. I always love seeing what they choose! Judah is sleeping with his bear in this picture, and they still sleep with their special animals from the cruise every night!



The big boys spent the morning in kids club and Justin got to go on a cool behind the scenes tour of the ship. The boys got their faces painted!



After lunch we spent the afternoon relaxing. We did some swimming and then Judah went to kids club, Cohen wanted to stay with us so we hit up the buffet on the lido deck for an overabundance of desserts and then sat in the sun. My disclaimer is that I didn't eat everything that was sitting in front of me, I wanted to try it all though!


We were in Victoria from 7-11 p.m. such a short and inconvenient time. At least for us with 3 little kids! Someone said that they have to stop in an international port on cruises. Not sure if that's true or not but that would explain our short stop there.

This was a special mom and grandma date night for Judah. We went on a horse drawn carriage ride and then had tea at the Empress. He was such a big boy about it! Then we had a little bit of time to wander around before we had to catch our bus back to the ship. Nothing was open, but I love Victoria so it was still fun to walk around a bit.






Justin took the other boys into town for awhile too. They had a great time wandering around and checking out Victoria with dad!




The thing that I found strangest of all about Victoria (and I actually still can't get over!) is that they never checked our passports or drivers license or anything. We had to scan our ship id card when we left the ship, (we had to do this in each port when we got off the ship and when we got back on), but after we got off the ship we didn't have to go through any kind of customs. Then when we got back on the ship we had to show our ship id card when we went through their little customs gate. Our ship id card, not our passport or drivers license. I don't get it. Maybe because they do a check of some kind on each person that gets on the ship initially. I know that if you have had a DUI you can't get into Canada so does that mean we had a ship full of DUI free people??? I doubt it! Can you just not get off in Canada if you don't "qualify"? When we went to Victoria for our one year anniversary we rode the Clipper and going through customs was awful. We had to go onto the secondary questioning and it just seemed really difficult. And I thought security was getting tighter, all this big talk about needing passports to enter Canada and then we got on a cruise and they want our ship id card. Seriously if anyone has any answers for me I would love to hear them because I can't move on from this!

The Cruise: Day 6

Ketchikan!

This was our day of melt-downs. :) We had a real good one in a coffee shop in the town and then another one when we got back on the ship...fun times!

We were only in Ketchikan until 1, so it was a much shorter day than the other ports. Which was good because by day 6 of the cruise we had some tired boys. We wandered around Creek Street, rode a funicular, watched jumping fish, walked through a tunnel, and did some shopping. This was also the first time we were in port with other cruise ships. There were a lot of people in this little town!






After we got on the ship we had some much needed naps. The big boys spent some time in kids club and then we had sushi before dinner. I think the thing Justin was looking forward to most about the cruise was the sushi cart. I think we went every time it was open!



This was our second formal night of the cruise. I guess I have no pictures from it though. The boys had escargot as their appetizer and they loved it! It was great to see all the new foods they tried!

The Cruise: Day 5

Juneau!

I really couldn't decide how we should spend our day in Juneau. Mendenhall Glacier is in Juneau and I couldn't decide if we would regret not going to it. But the shore excursions offered by the ship that included the glacier were so expensive. So in the end I hoped there would be some tour companies offering transportation to the glacier when we got off the ship. Luckily I was right, I think we paid $8 per adult or something like that for the bus ride and the kids were free. It was a great deal! At the glacier we didn't pay to get into the visitors center because there was plenty to do outside of it. They had a really nice area where the salmon were swimming upstream and they see bears there all the time. They had these neat little fences and bridges to view the bears from...unfortunately we didn't see any!








The salmon. They were huge!


After the bus brought us back we had a snack at a coffee shop and then Justin, his mom, Judah, and Cohen rode the Mt. Roberts Tram. Me and Jax stayed at the bottom and did some shopping in town. They had a great time at the top!







After they rode the tram we had a little bit of time before we had to get back on the ship. I think we left at 3 from Juneau. We did a little bit more wandering around town and the boys got some new hats!




The kids club had some family activities planned and the one for this day was bowling. The boys had a great time! One of the other days it was a family scavenger hunt...we won. :) The boys got a little trophy of the ship, they love it!


We saw lots of whales and dolphins that evening.


That night after dinner we took the big boys to kids club. (It was open until 10 free of charge and then they offered babysitting until 3 a.m. for a fee.) We hung out with Jax in the "safari walk", it had big animals on the walls and big windows and tables and chairs and it was usually empty, I think it was Jax's favorite part of the ship! Then we went to the show with just Jax, and picked the boys up after the show.

The Cruise: Day 4

Skagway!
We had bought one of the shore excursions in Skagway, a train ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railway. We chose the 3 hour ride, as opposed to some of the longer rides. The longer ones looked really cool, but even though the kids love trains I thought their attention span would be perfect for the 3 hour ride! Our train ride was scheduled for early in the morning...8:00 I think. So we ordered room service for breakfast. Super easy, just fill out the card provided in the room with how many of each item you want along with what time you want it and then hang it on your door the night before. And in the morning your breakfast is brought to you. Awesome. :)

This is a picture I took from the train. They obviously cater to the cruise ships, so much so that they extended their tracks so we could get off the ship and right onto the train. Easy as can be!



Some pictures from the ride:






This bridge is famous.

Thankfully they don't use it anymore! Here's some info if you're interested. :)


At the summit.


After the train ride we had some lunch and then wandered around town.





Had to take a picture in front of this old building because it reminded us of Uncle Jeff!



Justin played some disc golf while we headed back to the ship. This is a picture he took from the disc golf course. Skagway was so pretty!


A picture of the town of Skagway from our ship.

The boys spent some time in kids club and Jax hung out with us (kids club was for ages 2 and up). Skagway was our longest day in port. I think it was 7:30a.m - 9:00p.m. But we got back on the ship mid-afternoon and didn't get off again.


Handsome boys in some more handsome clothes!




One of the perks of the cruise was that they cleaned the rooms in the morning and the evening! It was fabulous! And every evening we came back to a different towel animal, so fun!



A video from the train ride.