Vacation Recap (Part 1)

Ian playing on the cruise ship in the "Under 2 Zoo."

Jan 7th - we drove to Maryland and went to bed shortly after we arrived. Ian had slept the whole trip, and Nadia had slept for the last hour (after watching DVD's for the first couple of hours). Ian didn't sleep well at all so this was our first rough night.

Jan 8th - we spent the morning with my parents and brother. Paul's parents arrived around 1pm. Around 2pm we left for the airport. Our flight was delayed so we arrived in New Orleans about one hour later than expected. Paul's parents brought their computer. It didn't occur to me to bring dvd's. Nadia would have sat and watched them on their computer the whole flight if I had brought them. The next time she flies - that's what we'll do! Duh! Overall the kids did pretty well. There was an extra seat so Paul, Ian, and I had three seats even though Ian didn't have a ticket. We took a taxi to the hotel and went to bed as soon as we got settled in. The hotel was really nice, especially considering how little I paid for it using Priceline's "name your price" feature. We were very grateful we didn't bring any carseats along as we had enough trouble lugging around our 5 suitcases (for the 6 of us), carry on bags, and double stroller. This was a horrible night between Nadia's coughing spells (lasting about 2 hours), and Ian refused to sleep in the pack n play.

Nadia in her big girl bed!

Jan 9th - we enjoyed the hotel's free breakfast buffet and hung out at the hotel until noon. We then took a taxi to the cruise terminal (very short ride). The double stroller came in handy as we were put on an express path to embarkation (treated as if we were handicapped). The double stroller did NOT come in handy on the cruise ship itself. We rarely used it because if anything was in the hallway (suitcase, cart of any kind, etc.) then the stroller wouldn't fit. After completing the embarkation process we had lunch at one of their sit down restaurants. This was the only time the 6 of us ate in one of those together as it was a challenge to do so with Nadia and Ian. The buffet restaurant worked much better although even that was a challenge since Ian refused to eat anything by soon the entire week. Someone had to hold him or walk him while we ate. We had dinner at the buffet restaurant that night and went to bed right after having dinner. It was another very rough night for both children.

Our waiter took this picture; this isn't the one we bought.

Jan 10th - we ate all 3 meals at the buffet restaurant. Nadia spent a little bit of time in the children's program (about 20 minutes). Thankfully Nadia slept well this night, and actually Ian did sleep most of the night in the pack n play although he got up very early.

Jan 11th - we had breakfast at the buffet (we never ate breakfast in any of the sit down restaurants). I love hot food for breakfast so this was often my favorite meal - french toast, hash browns, eggs, fresh pineapple, egg cooked to order, etc. YUM! Nadia had either Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops every morning. They only had really large spoons (some people referred to them as serving spoons - I'd say a fairer term would be soup spoons). Eventually I found a teaspoon and took it back to the cabin and brought it back to every meal as a soup spoon doesn't work for a 2 year old! We left the ship about 9:30am and walked around the port of Costa Maya a little bit before taking a bus to our tour guide. I had booked this Mayan ruins tour independently based on the recommendations of many posting on cruisecritic.com. The tour guide was excellent, but it was hard for us to concentrate in light of carrying two little ones. This would have been a great tour to take if it was just Paul and I, but until the kids are a lot older I think we need to skip such sites.



Hummingbird on Roatan




Iguana seen on a river cruise in Belize