Cruise Day 3- November 3rd

If you are just joining, catch up here to see what I am sharing about in the coming days & weeks!
-Day 1
-Day 2
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 Cruise Day 3, Monday, November 3

 Thankfully our night last night was much smoother both in sleep & sea! We decided we wanted to go to MDR for breakfast (the other alternative is Windjammer which is buffet style, MDR, you are waited on). Our wonderful head waiter from our evening dinner made it a point to serve us this morning. He got the kids chocolate milk, made sure Sarah got whatever she wanted gluten free and again, he cut up Olivia’s meal when it came. When it came time to order, Olivia said she wanted pancakes & bacon. The gal taking the order said you want pancakes? Olivia said AND I want bacon please! HA I had a delicious made to order omelet.

Olivia's "buddy" Dario cutting her food again!

 After breakfast the 3 older girls took off for teen club. I headed up to our little private play area with Ava & Olivia to continue to journal our trip while they played. When we got to the play area, there was a gal there who apparently organizes activities for the little ones 3 & under. I asked her if there were others Ava & Olivia's ages, she said nope, they are the only ones I get to work with. Well, sheesh, I wish I had known she was there waiting for us as we would've came up sooner. So now on sea days, I will make it a point to get the girls up there with her for fun activities just for them!

Craft project the girls leader was doing with them. Painting a dinosaur!

Amazing how they set up all this stuff in the room despite my girls being the only 2 on board to qualify for this stuff! (The toys get set up every morning then cleaned and put away around 4pm). She stayed a little bit and played with them while Erik & Kevin went to play some ping pong (I have to stay with the girls and can't leave them like you can do in the older kids clubs).

Olivia looking down on the deck from the play area

We finally saw the sun out later morning!! At lunch time, it was a balmy 70 out!! The captain announced at lunch time that we had traveled 700 miles so far and were currently sitting at a depth of 17,000 feet of ocean!! Unfathomable! Since the girls were off on their own, the rest of us went and had lunch. I've heard of kimchi before but never tried it until today! It was really good! It’s supposed to have a lot of health benefits (it was also spicy which I loved!)

Olivia jumped into Ava's highchair for a hug after lunch

After lunch, Kevin & Erik took Olivia to the kiddie pool & waterslide and I packed up Ava in the stroller and went out to the walking deck in hopes of walking her to sleep. The sun felt amazing and after 3 laps, Ava fell asleep! I headed towards the back of the ship to watch Olivia going down the water slide and play in the kiddie pool. It’s kind of funny, most of our cruises, you would find all the pool chairs taken but I think since this is an older crowd, many of them can’t be in the heat or sun so I imagine we won't have trouble finding a sunny deck chair!

A peek of the water slide, kiddie pool and kiddie "hot tub" (that was the same temp as the pool but bubbled)

Olivia at the back of the ship with the wake in the background

When Ava woke up, we swapped out and Kevin took the girls to the playroom while I finally got a few minutes to myself. That of course is when some of ya’ll finally received my first email update, ha!! (don’t you feel special I used my alone time for you guys!) After emailing, I went outside and found a lounger to read on for a while. Being outside reading felt amazing!

Earlier today, we inquired if Erik can join the teen club and they made an exception which is rare to be honest. He was SO excited to finally have activities he can do! The girls have loved the teen club. There are about 8 kids who regularly participate and they have become good friends. In fact, unless we happen to run into the girls throughout the ship, we had not seen them all day until it was time to get ready for dinner! They play group games both in the teen lounge as well as outside on the activities deck. The leaders also organize fun activities like a ship wide scavenger hunt, hide & seek, etc. A couple of the other teens are also homeschooled. They made friends with someone who doesn't live far from us in West Chester. Some of the teens are from overseas like Denmark, yet my kids said everyone is polite and gets along really well. My kids are very impressed (& thankful!) that there are no cliques! 

The above 3 photos are pics of the teen club area

Since it was a sunny day today, we finally had the privilege of watching the sunset from our dining room table during dinner. Not only do we have a huge window beside us, but right behind us is also another window that opens to the whole deck 4 (so 2 sides of our table has windows). 

We noticed today that there are still fans on 2 decks drying out the carpet from that rogue wave that hit. I can't even imagine what that wave of water looked like when it came pouring in! There is still 1 elevator that is still down but the rest in the back of the ship are reopened. I guess it’s a good thing that it happened at night when not many people would've been out there.

After dinner, we headed back to the room and the kids headed out to see what the evening activities were for the teens. Ava & Olivia were about ready for bed until Olivia decided she was hungry so I took her up to the buffet and she decided to get some spaghetti (at almost 9pm!) I picked up a few pieces of sushi and we took our snacks back to our room. Hannah decided to stay back tonight so she and Olivia rented a movie using our free certificate we got (and yes she surprisingly ate all her spaghetti!) So Kevin & I also used our free movie to rent one while I ate my snack (though I admittedly fell asleep during the movie and am now finishing up this trip report at 4am since I am wide awake!)

As you can tell, sea days are quite relaxing. You can do as much or as little as you would like. Each evening, we receive a cruise compass that lists all the activities that are going on as well as the times & locations for the next day. There is literally something going on from as early as 6am all the way till 1am. In the past, we've participated in a lot of those activities (ice shows as there is an ice skating rink, theater productions, etc) but with the 2 little ones, it makes it tougher to do some of those activities so this trip is a bit more laid back in that aspect. It also is our 4th time on this ship and things like the ice show are the exact same shows we've seen before. I just wanted to preface why you might not hear me talking about shows, late night buffets, etc.

Just a glimpse of one cruise compass. It has several pages of info besides the daily schedule.

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All photos can be clicked on to enlarge. The photos I am sharing are a combination of ones I took as well as my kids and husband on a variety of cameras and iPhones, hence the varying quality.