Carnival Miracle

We went on a family cruise for spring break. It was great fun to be all together with no screens for a week eating all the soft serve we could stomach and playing lots of Flip 7 and SkipBo. I think we all rated the experience pretty high minus a few excursions, a very cold pool, and minimal onboard entertainment.

Tampa- Traffic to and from was awful, but we made it and saw the Bucs stadium. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant that we cannot recommend. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express where the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, reportedly because of a drunken, naked man running around on the 4th floor. Excitement! The next morning, we almost missed our shuttle to the boat because they kept calling for "Weber" and it took us much too long to realize that was us as booked by our travel agent.

The boat was fun to explore and though cozy, we really liked our room. There was a Blue Iguana Cantina which is half the reason I wanted to go. We played putt-putt and ping-pong when we could find the table unoccupied. We won Bingo in Camp Ocean, went to a towel folding class where Rory's elephant turned out a bit blobby- much to his disappointment, learned to pronounce the word entrée, and hid and found many rubber ducks. There was a Deal or No Deal show, a bit of trivia, shuffleboard, and some very mixed water sliding experiences. One slide you had to manually push yourself down while everyone watched, where the other had the floor dropping out from under you with possible decapitation. There was a lot of down time and we played cards and went on a daily walk to the candy shop for our 25 cent jaw breakers. The boys' number one request was to watch Oceans 8 on the tv in our cabin. Daron and I snuck out one night to go to a Marriage Show that was actually pretty disgusting. (I sound like a real snob about this trip, or at least as snobby as one choosing Carnival can be. It will get worse.)

Cozumel- We had a snorkel/beach excursion on our first stop. The water was clear and beautiful and the catamaran was nice. They had all you could drink soda and music. There wasn't a huge variety of fish and I got in trouble for putting on sunscreen (It was reef safe!) but I think it was everyone's favorite part. Rory's snorkel was too big so a large part of our 45 minutes was figuring that out, but even so, a very fun experience. Unfortunately, all of my pictures are of fish rears and stray fins. After snorkeling we had a private beach stop with turquoise water and inflatable slides. This set our expectations which turned out to be much too high for the rest of our outings.

Belize- I booked us a trip to see Mayan ruins in Belize which I thought would be cool because it included a boat ride through the jungle and a rainforest hike. Those were pretty good and we did see crocodiles, but the bus ride to get there was looong. It didn't help that we also had a long wait to get on the ferry to shore and another 30 minutes aboard to dock. I am glad that my kids got to see some of the ways other people live. We are very much spoiled by our comfortable, oblivious lives. The ruins were very cool, but our tour guide was not enthusiastic or informative. I can imagine shuffling tourists through all day would get old. Lunch was about 300 calories of a scant chicken thigh, rice and beans with coleslaw, and hot grape juice. Then we did the whole journey in reverse- jungle boat to bus, bus to ferry, ferry to ship. We really liked getting back on that ship.

Idol hunting in the jungle.

 

 

 

Costa Maya- Coming off our hot, long jungle day, we decided we could use another beach with pristine waters and private beach chairs. There is a little cruise hub/make-shift market at the port of Costa Maya and we decided to brave beyond it to get to one. We didn't have an excursion, so we got a taxi and were dropped off at a very brown and almost intercoastal looking area where each stretch of the beach was privatized by mostly dilapidated cabanas you had to buy drinks at to use and whose owners were very enthusiastic that you do so. We were a bit out of our element and it wasn't exactly relaxing conditions, so we hopped right back in a taxi and spent most of the day on the ship. Turns out, we are more of the private island type than the authentic cultural experience type. Lame, I know.

Some upside down pole fliers.

By the time we disembarked, we were happy to do so and home seemed about like the best place on Earth. (It is.) That being said, I think we would do it again, eventually. I've blown our travel budget for like 3 years, so by that time we will be eager for a new adventure.

March

I am feeling a shift of content from my children to myself and it makes me sad. I am either becoming increasingly self absorbed (possible) or we are just moving to bigger people with more separate lives. Both are depressing. They are still the cutest and best part of everything in our world, but I guess we are boring and in the routine of doing the same unnoteworthy things on repeat. If I wrote about their happenings it would be 99% video game gibberish. Silas is on a Minecraft server with his group at church and they take turns pillaging each other with various levels of drama. Rory can be found draining the world's water with his shower play or watching Mark Robber on t.v. A normal night is everybody getting home and snacking/homeworking and then maybe a walk with Nox, porkchops with box mashed potatoes for dinner, and an episode of Taskmaster before off to bed with a story. They have a 10 minute Get Ready for Bed timer that if they don't beat they face a school cafeteria lunch the following day. I like to try to distract them and then race them up the stairs at the last minute. Currently the bedtime story is The Golden Compass Series if Dad is reading, and The Mysterious Benedict Society if I am.

Now back to me...

I went on a siblings trip to Boston and all my favorite ones came! I was transported back to winter after having hung up my coat, so I was a bit chilly, but it was the perfect city to spend 3 days exploring. I do think we went at the wrong time of year. No water for the swan boats, no whale watching or leaves changing, and the Survivor cafe we planned to visit had moved to Miami. 

We saw all the Freedom Trail, Paul Revere, Boston Massacre highlights the first day. We ate at a tavern that George Washington frequented. (Could be lies.) I also got us tickets to a play at the most miniature theater I have ever seen. I am not sure how it made the Boston Calendar of things to do because the Uber had to drive us 30 minutes out of town, drop us in a gravel parking lot, and our second to last row tickets were about 20 feet from the stage. There was some "what did I get us into" panic, but it ended up being a pretty talented crew for such an intimate venue. 

Day 2 we took a train to Salem and celebrated Trenton's birthday. We got dessert! (Thanks, Jane!) I loved Salem the most with it's witchy shops. We did the best escape room I've ever done. The host was interactive in the form of Bellschnickle the cottage goblin who you had to feed, play cards with, and provide a shoe. He told us at the end that we were one of the most "puzzle literate" groups he had seen. 

With the fresh glow of our escape room genius, on Day 3 we headed straight to Harvard. Harvard had a surprisingly good free museum with artifacts from all the ancients as well as Degas, Monet, and Renoir. I got to see a piece of a relief from King Xerxes palace that Esther may have walked by on the regular! We also saw the place the Great Hall in Hogwarts was modeled after. At dinner we had the best ASMR waitress ever along with really good pasta at Mama Maria's. Cheers, the Boston Harbor, and Fenway Park all fit in there somewhere too. We thought it would be crazy with St. Patrick's Day, but the only real crowd was on the subway on the day of the parade.

Conn and Trevor got to stay an extra night with canceled flights, but we all made it back eventually with future plans of making it an annual occurrence!

Hocus Pocus House