That One Time We Cruised, part 6: Is It Finally the End?

Wow, you’ve stuck through a lot of description of our cruise! But now, sadly, we are reaching the end. So, here’s a little final miscellany.

1. You know how if you get blackout curtains and turn out all the lights, you still get light filtering in from somewhere? Maybe it’s the light on your powerstrip cord. Maybe a little coming through a slit between or underneath the curtains. Not so when you’re in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night. So dark. So weird. I had lots of funky dreams on the cruise—I think partially because of the utter darkness, partially the oodles of food, and partially the pregnancy.

So, yeah, we probably took about as many
pictures at the Space Center as we did on
the entire rest of the vacation.

2. The service was fantastic. You have the same servers each night at dinner, and you have the same maid (? whatever you call her) the whole time too. They know your names, they try to be as helpful as possible, and they have lovely personalities. Or at least they fake it because they’re getting paid.

3. Coriel is super-duper into mysteries, and there was this fun mystery adventure that you had to go all around the ship to find clues for. Addra really enjoyed it too.

4. We went to the Kennedy Space Center on Friday after we got back into Florida. It was fun and totally worth it. We went to a short lecture and Q&A with a real-life astronaut. Coriel was thrilled. She asked about the requirements for becoming an astronaut and immediately started talking about how she was going to do it. (Most recently she has decided to become the president of the United States instead, but I’m pretty sure that will pass too.) Brice and the girls went on a space shuttle simulator. (I held Koa and didn’t tell the girls that I wasn’t doing it because I was pregnant.) Koa fell asleep in the stroller when I was outside in the blistering heat but then immediately started waking up both times I tried to wander into the cool indoors. So I just sat, melting, in a little shade while he napped. Weird kid. We weren’t sure the Space Center would be worth the cost at first, but it turned out awesome that we went. Plus, it totally counted as homeschooling. Win!

The Wrapup:

So while I started out hating the cruise, by the end we had all had lots of fun. It truly was an enjoyable vacation, and we’re glad we did it. However, it also wasn’t really our vacation style. We don’t really like being on someone else’s schedule, and we prefer having a wider range of options for what to do with our time. Brice and I are used to choosing our own activities when we vacation, and there are usually museums involved. And maybe a chocolate shop. And a used bookstore. And our own quirky adventures.

The separation of family had its pros and cons. We actually really do like being together, even on vacations, but a cruise doesn’t feel like it’s very much about togetherness, so that felt weird. On the other hand, it was lovely to be able to drop the kids off and have some time to ourselves. We had a nice dinner, just the two of us, one night, which wouldn’t happen on a regular vacation. Also, I freely admit that I sometimes need to cut the strings a little more and just trust that the kids are safe and happy elsewhere—so that was some good practice. I think the ideal would have been to have more options where we could all be together—as well as the option of being apart. There was very little that was suited to having us all playing together. In fact, there really wasn’t anything except mealtimes. (The pool had a separate spot for the babies; we weren’t allowed into the kids’ clubs except during a couple of hours here and there; when we went on the spy/mystery adventure around the ship, we just put Koa in the stroller so he wasn’t particularly engaged or active—which gets boring quickly for a little one.)

So did we enjoy it? Yes, we all did. Will we do it again? Probably someday, but we’re not itching for it. There are too many vacation options in the world for us to jump up and down for a cruise again immediately. If we do it again, we will probably wait until all the kids are old enough to be in the kids clubs; I think that would be more fun for them and for us all.

Still, the tenth anniversary trip was a success! Happy anniversary to us!