****WARNING PICTURE HEAVY AND LONG POST AND
REALLY NOTHING ABOUT SURROGACY!*****
I admit, this has little (or nothing!) to do with surrogacy but I have had a lot of people ask me on FB for a review on the cruise and I would love to post some photos for everyone to see that either isn't on FB or some photos I have not posted yet. And without a lot of surrogacy stuff going on currently, not a lot to update but I can see from stats that people have been looking for some kind of update!!
I also realize I should have written this before now! I am going to forget so many important details because we set sail 2 weeks ago.
Saturday morning we woke up the kids bright and early (okay it wasn't even bright out-- it was still very dark for another 2 hours). We left the house at 4 am in order to meet my sister in law and her other half at the Ft. Lauderdale airport by 4:30pm. The airport was about 12 hours away from the house and we made excellent time. The kids were super excited to make the journey. We got to the airport with about an hour to spare and their flight came in early. We even stopped many times along the way even for extended periods. This is one of my favorite photos-- We are missing Piper in the photos because she stayed with Nonnie. But this is a rest stop somewhere in Florida while we were killing time!
The kids got a lot of goodies for our elf Oswald who did not want to be left behind for the trip including sandals and sunglasses!
The embarkation process was seamless. Seriously. Norwegian Cruise Lines had it together for this. The parking that I had booked was a FIASCO. Seriously. Kurt and my 'BIL' (in quotations because he hasn't popped the question YET but ummmm yes.... I will call him my BIL because he has been around for a decade almost!!) and Weston dropped my SIL and Leah and myself off at the port with all of the luggage. (And by all of the luggage, I mean at least 9 bags!) then they took the truck to a place that was 'just two miles from the port' (maybe as the crow flies) so they get there and it is a LONG line that is not moving. They had about 3 hours before we had to be on the ship. An hour and a half later and they still had not moved and it was in the bad part of town. They talked to someone else that was there that said that they had gotten off the ship that morning and they could not find their car still. Basically what happens is you get into a line, the attendants take your keys and car and put them in there so tight they have to crawl out the back of the vehicle to park the cars. THen you have to wait for all of the other people around them to return from the ship so your car can move. Of course none of this was advertised on the website and we had already paid for the parking. Kurt and Doug decided to come back to the port and pay $180 for the parking AT the port that was safe, convenient and we didn't have to wait for others to leave so we could disembark and get on the road for the 14 hour trip home.
So we waited inside the port terminal for about 30 minutes and then we were able to get on the ship. From the moment we walked in the door, the professionals on the NCL (Norwegian Cruise Lines) ship were friendly and amazing with our kids. This was their first cruise and our first cruise with NCL-- Kurt and I have been on a few other Carnival cruises.
By the time we waited for an hour and a half for the parking situation, we boarded the ship and after navigating the HUGE Norwegian Epic, we found our way to our room. Our room was ready and our luggage was waiting for us. Again-- NCL has their stuff together at this port at least. We met our amazing room steward and I told him about our elf friend Oswald and how he liked to move around the room while we were out in the evenings and our steward was happy to help us with this! Our steward was absolutely amazing and very friendly and he worked so hard every day for us. He knew our names before I walked in the room.
The entertainment staff on this ship absolutely loved Weston and Leah. Leah got to call Bingo one night with Nacho (Assistant Cruise Director) and Weston found a best friend in Lionel who chased him for hours on end at events allowing us to enjoy our time on the ship.
When I say the entertainment staff is amazing, I truly mean it on this ship. I have been on 3 other cruise ships and I only actually remember seeing the Cruise Director/Assistant on ONE other cruise. The rest of the cruises we went on, they were around-- sort of, but not memorable. Due to the timing of our cruise, there really weren't a lot of children on the ship, so everyone loved our kids. The Splash Camp was always doing fun stuff with the kids including face painting and themed parties and my kids enjoyed the counselors. Leah, upon debarkation, embraced 'Milkshake' (Monique is her real name but with employees from all over the world, they have the professionals that work with the kids create nicknames the kids will remember that start with the first letter of their real first name) and I thought Leah would cry-- like she was losing her best friend. These people never seemed to have a bad day and the kids absolutely loved them. Even Weston (who threw a few fits to NOT go to camp because he wanted to stay with daddy) still says 'Let's go on a cruise again-- I want to go to camp RIGHT now!'
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| Photos of the kids after camp events |
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The seadays were 'okay'. Here is a difference between Norwegian and Carnival. Norwegian calls it Freestyle Cruising. Meaning you get to choose what day you want to go to shows, when and where you want to eat, and what you want to do. There were not an abundance of things to do during the day like there was on Carnival. Usually this would be fine because we would stay up late, get up early, eat, take a nap, eat, take a nap, etc. But this time we had kids with us. Our whole cruising schedule changed and that meant entertainment and activities changed too.
This time, camp opened at 8 or 9 and then closed from 12-2 and from 5-7 for staff to get meals. They did not feed the kids unless it was a port day and there was a $6 fee associated with the staff feeding the kids while we were in port. (Though this was not an option for us due to the fact that we had Weston with us and he has severe food allergies so as long as he was in camp, we had to remain on the ship!) So as you see, we had 3 hours in the morning, 3 hours in the afternoon and about 2 hours in the evening that the kids could go to camp. It always seemed that activities fell within the closure for camp so keeping the attention span of a gnat (aka weston) took physical activities like playing in the really really awesome kids pool area that was a wading pool with play activities for the kids to climb on. There were also 3 huge water slides, a basketball court, 2 rock climbing walls, a 'ropes course' for kids, 3 other 'public' water pools (one for adults only) and a private 'haven' for the people who book the upscale suites.
So back to the activities schedule... A lot of the fun stuff happened at night such as the shows. They did have family shows that started at 7 which was great. We went to those shows. You have to book your shows either before you board or at the box office on the ship. You cannot just show up to the show and get a seat. (This in my mind goes against the freestyle cruising, but with 4,000+ cruisers on ONE ship, you have to have some sort of order to allow everyone to see a show). The shows we saw were the Blue Man Group (AMAZING AMAZING SHOW that my kids won't stop talking about!), the Legends Show (Impersonators) and the comic club show. Also on the last sea day, there was a talent show of employees on the ship and that was actually pretty cool to see the employees showing off their talent. I felt there were not as many shows as there was on the Carnival, but we were limited to what we could see due to the kids and them being flat out exhausted from either playing in the sun all day or going to camp and running non-stop all day.
Next up-- the Food.
The ship is MASSIVE! This is evident in this photo-- It is the Epic next to another NCL ship called the Sun. The Epic is the ship that is in the back. It is actually longer in the front than the Sun and obviously longer in the back and several floors higher than the Sun.
With a ship that large, you have to have your food set up in a way that is perfect or else everything else will fall apart! They have Freestyle dining which means you get to eat at any time at any venue you would like. There are 19 venues to eat on the Epic. They are from the buffet (garden cafe) to Cagney's steakhouse (which is an additional $30 a plate). Some of the places you could pay to upgrade included an Asian Bistro, a japanese steakhouse, italian eatery.
The free places to eat were the buffet -- there was an AMAZING hostess there named Joannaline and she loved my children. She was from the Phillipines and had a son the same age as Weston so she would sing him songs. She dressed up daily depending on where we were going (Wearing a hat with dreads for Jamaica, sombrero for Cozumel). She was a beautiful presence and we would sometimes just go up to the Cafe just to say hi to her. She is a wonderful asset to the NCL crew. The food was decent and of course plentiful. If there wasn't something you liked on the buffet, they had pizza, hotdogs, chicken breasts, and burgers all of the time. We ate there for breakfast and lunch every day for the cruise and for 4 dinners as well. The food was good, always full, there were lines at peak times but they moved quickly. Omelet stations were everywhere in the morning so you never had to wait too long to get an egg made to order. The outside buffet had weird hours and they never changed their food so it wasn't appealing to me.
The other free places were the Taste and Manhattan dining rooms. The service was SLOW. It was terrible. The servers didn't seem happy with their jobs and it seemed that they were trained to move them out to open seats and not to be personable at all. On Carnival, the servers had fun. They got to know your family, they danced, sang, did silly things. When we had dinner the first night in the Taste, we had a large table of Jewish travelers behind us. Before we boarded the ship, we declared food allergies. I talked to the Maitre D of the dining room and we worked on a menu for Weston. The same happens for religious declarations and the Cruise line adheres to them. Now I am not sure if our waiter had never dealt with Kosher menus or if they didn't declare it before they entered the ship or dining room but it was a huge fiasco and our service was compromised due to it. (Don't get me wrong, everyone has their needs and they should be met, but our kids food was forgotten to be put in and Weston sat there watching us eat while they heavily waited on the table behind us). 2 hours later and we were finally done with dinner and it was bedtime! The Manhattan served the same menu as the Taste, but it was a more formal atmosphere where you had to dress more formally as well. There was a live band that played there as well. We ate there once. Service was mediocre. Food was on par for other food we had tried on Carnival. I missed the 'Dija' items from the Carnival menu though.
There was also a pub style eatery called O'Sheehans that had things like fish and chips, mozzarella sticks, dip and chips. Again-- the service was TERRIBLE! Took a long time to eat there, kids were melting down. It was time to go back to the room and finish watching the Packers game.
Our balcony room was small for 4 people but storage was ample so we made it happen. We also had an adjoining room with my inlaws so it made our room seem bigger being able to escape in there or use their sink/bathroom when ours was being used. We cleaned up the room daily to keep my OCD at bay, but I was sure to bring a lot of things to help organize (an over the door shoe organizer, ziplocks, little bins, etc).
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| Every night our room steward dropped the bed from the ceiling. The kids did well in this situation, but it made it hard to get by because the room was so narrow. |
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| The room when we first walked in and there was no luggage or personal effects. | | | |
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| My sister in law and I enjoying the sun deck. Yes I have a top on-- it is just strapless, but right above us, they have a 'freestyle sundeck' aka topless. The weirdos that went up there were interesting.... |
Ports of call:
Ochos Rios Jamaica -- I would be okay if I never went back to this port. The water was
beautiful, but the people were pushy. Very pushy. We walked around the
shopping area, stopped at Margaritaville and bought some amazing
glasses to stock our forever home's bar. Well guess we need to go back
to Jamaica, because upon our return to the States, Kurt broke one!
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| Shopping Center in Jamaica |
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| The Jamaican women LOVED Weston and followed him everywhere! |
The very next day we went to Grand Caymen Islands-- Cape George.
This port was a tender port and the waters were so ROUGH that the tenders were running more than an hour late and they dropped life boats from the side of the ship to get people moving. When going to get on the life boat (as well as the chartered tenders) the step to get onto these small vessels were bobbing with the waves. When I say bobbing with the waves, the steps were going so high that they were going way up above my head from the small gangway that they dropped from the side of the ship. The Epic has only been on this itinerary for 4 weeks and already had to cancel that port once because of rough waters.
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| Tender boats waiting on clearance from our ship to begin getting passengers. The water doesn't look rough in this photo but I assure it, it was a very difficult and probably dangerous process especially for those who are not physically fit. |
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| View of the harbor from our balcony |
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| Waiting for the Epic crew to allow us to go on the tender boat |
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| On the tender boat |
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| On the tender boat |
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| View from top of tender bridge |
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| View of Epic from the shore |
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When we got into port, we did a little shopping and really didn't buy anything as everything was very expensive. For example-- the duty free Rum for a bottle was $10 but they had to ship it right to the ship -- you could not consume in port. If you wanted to consume in port, it was $43 for the same bottle of rum. We went back to the port area, got our passports stamped and waited for our excursion to start. This was the only excursion we booked and it was to swim with the stingrays. We walked over to a bus where there were 2 seats on each side and then a seat folded down in the aisle for children to sit on. We got a tour around the island and it was quite beautiful. Though everything is VERY VERY expensive there. This was probably my least favorite port because everything is so commercialized and there is nothing that is 'special' to Grand Caymen.
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| Pool and slide at Margaritaville, Cape George |
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| Random photos from around town |
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| There were 5 ships in the harbor on the day we were docked. Photo from 'taxi bus' |
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| Inside the bus |
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When we got to the marina, there were Iguanas everywhere. They call them the squirrels of the Caribbean. I showed Weston one that was several feet long. We walked closer, closer, closer and he still didn't see it. I think he was expecting to see one that was a few inches long. We got right up to it and it moved and Weston jumped and said "Whoah! That is big!" They were everywhere walking on the rocks around the Marina.
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| Look on the rocks and you will see the iguana |
We boarded a small vessel and took a 30 minute ride through some of the most beautiful waters I have ever seen in my life to the sandbar where they feed the wild stingrays. These rays were beautiful and gentle and HUGE! You were told to shuffle step so you didn't step on one of these magnificent creatures. This was an amazing opportunity for the children to see something they will probably never see again. Though Weston was excited before we left, he was nervous in the water. The water was quite rough that day and the waves would go over their head if they stood so we had to hold them the whole time.
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| The Rays had eyes that looked like shark eyes |
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| The crew that took us to the sandbar was all family, dad, grandad, grandchildren, uncles |
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| Local legend has it, every time you kiss a ray, you will have 7 years of good luck. Leah kissed as many as she possibly could! She should have about 35 or more years of good luck! |
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| This is the face of an unimpressed child! |
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| It appeared they had teeth inside that mouth! |
Once we got back from the excursion, we got back on the ship through tender and set sail to Cozumel, Mexico.
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| Weston saying goodbye to Cape George on the top story of the tender boat |
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| Leaving the tender pier at Cape George |
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| Surprisingly, the 'Pirate Ship' in this photo is actually a small cruise sail boat that sails around the Caribbean |
Next up-- Cozumel, Mexico.
When we entered the port, there was aleady a smaller NCL ship at the pier. Upon walking off the pier, all of the bags had to be sniffed by working dogs for drugs. The good stuff can leave the country, but it cannot come in the country of Mexico! Last time we came to Cozumel, we came into what I think is the South Pier and this time we were in the North Pier. I could be directionally challenged though because it was somewhere I was not familiar with... So we came into a different port this time and the port area was beautiful. It had a Hooters right in the port and everything was so cheap. We walked around for a bit, bought some souvenirs, took them back to the ship and headed a few blocks away to another Margaritaville. At this Margaritaville, the servers danced together on a stage, there was a place to go snorkeling and to play on water equipment. It was fun just soaking up the sun there. And of course, I got another set of pilsner glasses to stock our bar in our forever home.
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| The cluster of people before the covered walkway was so the working dogs could sniff the bags. |
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| Thew view as we were coming into port |
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| The view of the walkways over the street in either direction. |
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| Kurt spent most of his time on the computer while we were in port catching up on grading papers since he is an online instructor |
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| We even got to skype with Grandma and Grandpa where it was only 6 degrees!! |
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| In Mexico, they have Coca-Cola light instead of diet coke |
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| Ahoy matey! |
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| I may have gotten a bit of sun in Cape George-- Even with sunscreen on! But I assure you, it tanned up nicely! | |
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| Views of the port before we left |
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| Weston waving goodbye to the Sun that left before us |
One very impressive thing about NCL is the way they treat you as you come back on the ship. I remember seeing the 'Welcome back' parties that NCL would have when we were on the Carnival ships. Carnival would just have someone to take your card as you got on the ship and say 'Welcome back'. NCL at the first port had a large cart full of beach towels so you could get new ones before returning to ship and they had water and cold wet rags to cool you off and wipe the sweat away. It was refreshing. In Caymen Islands, they had water for us as we waited in line to get back on the tender boats as well. When we returned to the ship from Cozumel, they had an all out party as this was the last port for our trip. Music, tents, water, jello 'shots' (no alcohol), cool wet towels. The whole nine-yards. They even rolled out red carpets. The entertainment team came out and danced. Spongebob wobbled with it. It was really nice. And all of the crew once again loved my children.
As you know, all good things must come to an end! When we got back onto the Epic from Cozumel, we began our trip back to Miami. The debarkation process in Miami was again seamless. We left our luggage outside the door before 11pm the night before. When Kurt and I travel alone, we usually do self-debarkation where we take our own luggage. With 2 kids and a ton of luggage (plus extra luggage acquired on the trip) there was no way we could get our stuff off the ship on our own. We got tags for 8:15 debarkation. We woke up, had breakfast and headed to the gangway. Our luggage was waiting for us and we had a very short wait to get through customs, loaded the car and we were on our way home. The trip home was not as carefree as the trip there as the kids were exhausted but we made excellent time and were able to make it home on Sunday night by 11pm. The last sunrise we saw from the ship-- In the harbor in Miami while we were eating breakfast.
A few last photos that were highlights of the trip-- our Elf Oswald loved all of the towel creations that our room steward made and he was always found around them:
One final photo of our trip-- My husband surprised me with this beautiful ring that the stone was the same color of the beautiful waters in the Caribbean. No he didn't buy it at Jared's. He bought it at the same jewelry store I was talking about in the previous blog (Schoenborn's Jeweler in Wisconsin). So now it is official-- I am finally a Binversie after only 5 years of being married into the family. This was my 5th Anniversary gift and he gave it to me off the coast of Cuba-- Where we had an USCG escort between us and the shore since we were so close. It took a lot of people to get this ring to me-- my sister in law Mary who took photos the first time I tried it on, my sister in law Kathy who brought it on the cruise, my mother in law who picked it up from the store and got it to Kathy... So yes, many people involved in this gorgeous ring!
Well i think that is all folks! I am sure only 2% of you actually read the WHOLE post, maybe 19% looked at some photos and the others said 'let me hit the egg nog before I sit back down at the computer for this long winded mess!' So who wins the great debate of best cruise experience between Carnival or Norwegian? Well.... We did put a deposit on our next cruise for NCL-- It was a $150 deposit but you got $250 to put towards the cruise-- we just have to sail within 4 years but didn't have to actually book the cruise now. But I still love Carnival too. I would love to do a Royal Caribbean or a Disney, but at this time, $1600 for a family of 4 in a balcony room, the price was right for Norwegian. Maybe one day our family will splurge for a more expensive cruise, but we are very happy with both Norwegian and Carnival so if we never have an elite cruise line to compare to, we don't know what we are missing!
And here is my PS to tie in surrogacy since you have read this long-- My cycle was due to start on the Monday (the day after we set sail) while on the cruise. My Nurse Coordinator said I could continue to take active pills to allow me to skip or at least allow my cycle to be slightly late so I could enjoy the cruise. No dice-- It still came right on time and lasted for the ENTIRE cruise. Why does my body have to be cyclical when it is least opportune!?? Also come January my IM starts stimming for her egg retrieval. So sometime February./March we will be transferring. Contracts are just about done as well-- just waiting for the Christmas holidays to pass by so we can get them signed in to fruition!
Merry Christmas followers near and far! |
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