Thanksgiving Cruise

We were home for almost a week and then left on Saturday, November 22nd, for a 7 night Caribbean Cruise on the Royal Caribbean, Freedom of the Seas.  All 5 of us and Collin's girlfriend, Taylor.  We flew into Orlando, FL and stayed the night at a hotel and had a shuttle pick us up the next day to board our ship.

Ready to Board the Ship!

 Checking out Kurt and My room with a Balcony

The kids rooms were right across the hall from us.  Collin and Cole shared a room and Katie and Taylor.

We were at sea for 2 days and there was lots to do for everyone.

Watching the Belly Flop Contest

 Collin and Taylor

Family Picture

On Tuesday, November 25th, we made it to Lebadee, Haiti.  This is Royal Caribbean's Private Island and was a beach day for all of us!  I also forgot to mention that 3 other families from my Bunco group were on this same cruise. So it was a lot of fun to be with the Watkins, Nickeloff's and Colliers too!  Fun day of playing in the water and sun!

 Our ship docked in Labadee, Haiti

 Crystal and Melody

Taylor, Collin & Cole

Wednesday, November 26th we got to Jamaica!  

Jamaica, was a full day of planned excursions!  First we went to Dunn's River Falls.  This was quite the excursion!  We couldn't bring our phones or cameras since we were in the falls the whole time.  

Here is what Dunn's River Falls looks like.

After Dunn's River Falls, we got back on our tour bus and went to a lunch and then on to our next excursion.  This was the Jungle River tubing safari.  It was amazing getting there, we literally went through the worst part of Ocho Rios.  One always here's about how poor it is there but you really don't understand it until you see it!  This was another trip you didn't want to take your phones or camera's so here is what this looked like:

It was really nice and relaxing except for Katie getting the bad tube!  Here is what they are supposed to look like:

Well, Katie's tube in the center was broken so it would slow her down a lot!  She was feeling left behind.  The guides were good and would go back and get her and constantly tell her "No Worries, Katie!" and if you know Katie Well, lets just say politely, she didn't enjoy that! :-)  All in all, it was a good time!

Then it was time to get back to the ship, it was quite a long ride back to port.  Once we got back we shopped a little and then we were ready to get back on board and get showered!  It was a long day.

Next stop was supposed to be The Grand Cayman, later that night they let us all know that they were going to not stop there because of weather issues.  So that meant our scuba diving trip was not going to happen.  So they slowed the ship down a bit and we went to our next stop in Cozumel, Mexico.  We booked scuba diving again and once again that got cancelled because of high winds.  So last minute decisions were made to get to an all inclusive beach day.  We ended up having a good time since the Colliers, Nickeloffs and Watkins were all there too!  We did a little bit of everything!

 Mark & Carri

 Crystal & Jim

Me, Crystal, Melody & Carri

 Tanner & Cole

 Collin & Taylor

Kurt and I

That was another long day of sand and water and time to get back on the ship.  The next 2 days were days at sea before we got back to FL.  We spent those days doing lots of activities on the ship.  We played some simulation golf, bingo, rock climbed, shopped and relaxed and went to a few shows at night.

 Cole

 Kurt

Collin

The funniest night was the Game Show, Quest!  This was an 18 and older show but Katie was able to go since she was with us.  This was held in the ice arena (They covered the ice for this). They divided each section and we had to have two volunteers from each section, a boy and a girl.  Then it was like a scavenger hunt in your section.  The cruise director would say do a certain thing or find a certain thing from your section and the 1st one to deliver it, would get points.  Well, Cole was chosen from our section along with a girl, a year older than him.  This was hilarious!  Some of the things they had to do was skip around with the same sex.  Get False teeth from someone.  Get a Bra from someone in your section. Dirty Dance with the same sex, etc.  Here are some pictures of this:

 Cole skipping with another guy

 Cole in a Bra, boxers and makeup

All the guys dressed up as girls ( Cole & Connor Watkins)

 Cole - on the BIG Screen

 His Final Pose!

And the WINNERS are Cole and his Partner!! with the Cruise Activity Director

After Thanksgiving the cruise ship also put up a Christmas Tree.  It was such a GREAT trip and fun to do with the Holidays!!  We are already planning our next cruise!  Lots of Fun!!

 Not the best pictures since its a picture of a picture