Spring Break Cruising

We spent Spring Break on our first family cruise. We took a most gigantic ship, the Norwegian Viva, right out of Galveston, and cruised the Caribbean for 7 beautiful sunny days in March. It was a fantastic reset and a nice, needed break for everyone. 

Galveston is only an hour-ish drive from home, so it was ideal to drive directly to the port and walk on to the ship in a matter of 90 minutes. The last time Jon or I was on a cruise ship, we needed to spend the first few hours on emergency drills and practicing with the life vests. Somewhere between 1999 and today, they have figured out that this whole portion of the onboarding can be cut out, and we were able to get right to the vacation part.

We chose this cruise for its length (7 days), dates (Sat - Sat) and destinations (4 ports, 3 countries). The room size was great, lots of storage and places to tuck things away, we weren't tripping over suitcases or each other in our adjoining rooms. 

This ship has all kinds of incredible features! A race track!! Jon and the kids drove in laps around the ship's race course, all trying to beat the daily record for speed. I sat this activity out, the wait time and exhaust smells were enough to keep me as a spectator. 

We took advantage of lots of the excursion choices that the cruise line offered. In Honduras we took an excursion to a wildlife park where we took turns holding a sloth and tropical birds and let a monkey crawl around on everyone's heads. The kids could not believe that Dad put up with a literal monkey on his head. 

We enjoyed much of what the ship had to offer on board too. Press Your Luck was a throwback to a ridiculous TV game show and got the most perfect passenger to play. His variation of "no whammy, no whammy" to "washy washy, happy happy" mimicked the on board staff constantly encouraging everyone to sanitize their hands, and has made it into our family inside joke repertoire. 

We watched Beetlejuice The Musical, and then Gretchen returned another night to watch it again. The kids dominated family karaoke nights with all three getting up to sing bangers like "Pink Pony Club", "Don't Stop Me Now" and "House Party" and enjoyed all the soft serve ice cream they could find. There were on board water slides, mini golf, fitness center and we had good luck at the casino and playing family BINGO. 

I'm not sure that I'm a born cruiser, but this vacation was a great option now that the ships arrive without us needing to involve an airport. Happy Spring Break!!