to remember the little things: September 2009

I apologize for not posting in several days, but last week, we were well, out of the country.

We had been counting down all year for our cruise to Cozumel, Mexico and it finally got here! We had a great time!

It was 5 days/4 nights. We were anxious about how Lily would do but she thought we were basically in a hotel the whole time because once we got on the ship, she asked me, "Mommy, where is the boat?"

I wanted to give a summary of our trip day by day though for your personal enjoyment as well as a way to capture our memories..since my memory is so short anyways.

We left on Thursday morning from our house headed to Mobile. It's not a bad drive, so we were able to have some free time before loading the ship. Getting checked in and embarking the ship was actually very quick. We arrived at noon and were on the ship eating lunch by 12:45 pm. We had buffet lunch on the lido deck (10) and then ventured to our rooms. BJ's mom, grandpa (his mom's dad), BJ's oldest sister, Michelle, and her daughter , Amber all went with us. BJ's aunt and cousin were supposed to go as well but his cousin got sick with a fever and was not able to go so we were sad they couldn't go.

Here is a pic of BJ and Lily looking at the view of downtown Mobile from the ship.

Our rooms were very clean and nice. They were small but we expected small. We went on a short tour of the ship at 2:30 then explored around the ship for a while. We did Game Show trivia and watched a Dance Class before getting ready for Dinner in the Seven Seas Dining Room.

BEfore dinner, we did have our Muster Drill, with the life jackets and all of that fun stuff. Lily did not like wearing those jackets and we were glad when it was over because it was hot.

We dressed up each night for dinner which was at 6 pm. We all sat together and we were excited to have a window table, so we got to see the sunset from our window almost every night. The food was pretty good. It definitely wasn't southern food and there was no sweet tea, but we enjoyed trying new things and adding lots of splenda to our tea. BJ finally gave up and drank water at dinner, lol..poor thing. His staple drink is sweet tea. Our waitor's name was Jesus. Not actually pronounced Jesus, but 'Hay-zeus" I thought it was funny though when I saw his name tag and there was Jesus watching over us every night.

Here is Lily posing by our window at dinner.

and here she is eating.

After dinner that night, Lily and Amber went swimming and enjoyed the "hot water" in the hot tub.

One of Lily's favorite things about the food was 24 hour ice cream. Every time we walked past the ice cream machine, we had to stop for her some. She ate so much chocolate ice cream! She was loving every minute of it. Me, on the other hand, I didn't love scrubbing ice cream stains out of her clothes, haha..

Each night when we returned from dinner, there was a towel animal in our room on the bed. The first night was a stingray. Lily loved the upper bunk beds in our room. She played on it as her special space.

On Day 2, we spent this entire Day at Sea. The views were beautiful and the water was so blue! We got up and ate breakfast (Which was buffet and was the best meal to me.) I love breakfast food - bacon, sausage, hash browns, eggs, pancakes, etc..so I was in heaven. There was also a wide selection of fruits, muffins, etc..Breakfast was wonderful! As was the Orange Guava Passion juice, we loved that stuff and drank it with breakfast every morning.

This is Lily sitting in the window in BJ's mom and grandpa's room.

After breakfast, we went to the very top of the ship and guess what was up there! A putt-putt golf course. Lily had never played it so she had a fun time. She was so funny trying to hit the ball with her club. When her ball didn't go in the hole, she would run over and pick it up and throw it in the hole.

The view from up there was spectular and by this time, the water was a deep royal blue, very pretty.

Next, we went to the pool on the main Lido deck. It was a nice pool and the water was cool and very refreshing. We enjoyed some time on the big slide. Amber even convinced me to go down it once. I have to admit it was fun. We couldn't convince Lily to do it.

After swimming, it was time for lunch. Lunch buffet was ok, but it was lots of wild things that this Southern girl usually doesn't go for. It wasn't bad though just very different. Every day it had a theme, like Caribbean, Mediterranean, and on the last day was American! hahaha.

Here is a pic of BJ at the back of the ship. Look at the path our boat was leaving.

After lunch and exploring around the ship, BJ and Lily took a nap and Michelle and I watched the ice carving event on the Lido deck. It was amazing how that guy carved an Indian Chief head in the ice and it only took about 20-25 minutes. It was very pretty and amazing.

Nap time was over, and we watched a Marriage game kind of like the Newlywed game, then we got ready for Formal Night - the Captain's Dinner. We attempted to get family pics, but Lily refused to cooperate. This was one time she wasn't taking pics. The cruise staff take tons of pics throughout the cruise. You can take as many as you like and buy the ones you want. We did manage to get a good one of me and BJ and one of all of us that was good.

Here is BJ on the back of the ship again posing before the Captain's dinner.

and Michelle and Amber

This is the pic that BJ and I bought of ourselves. We thought it turned out good and we never make professional pics of just the two of us since we've had Lily.

Here is our whole group on Formal night.

At supper this night, it was nice. BJ and I had Prime Rib and some of the others had Lobster. The waitors sang "That's Amore" for us. We didn't stay for dessert this night. Lily was very tired and we ended up to the 50's and 60's music show that night. We didn't make it through the whole show, but what we saw was really impressive. We ended up going back to the room early as we were all worn out. Night 2's animal was an elephant.

Day 3 (Saturday) was our day in Cozumel. We all got up early to get off the ship at 8 am. We had breakfast, BJ captured some sunrise pics, and we ended up getting off of the ship at 7:30 am.

Waiting to get off the ship

Our ship as we got off.

Cozumel was really pretty. The water was breathtaking and the area we seen was really clean. As soon we got off the ship, we did a lot of shopping right off of the pier. We got tons of souveniers. Lily wanted everything and we had a hard time controlling us and ourselves at buying her whatever she wanted. She ended up leaving Cozumel with a doll, bracelet, purse, necklace, dress, guitar, maraca, t-shirt and probably something else. Everything was priced pretty cheap so I enjoyed shopping and especially trying to talk down the prices with the locals. We then caught a taxi to "Downtown Cozumel" for only 7 dollars for all 5 of us. We rode in a minivan with over 490,000 miles and no ac, but we made it safely and enjoyed the sights downtown. To us, the shopping was not as good as the pier, but the view was beautiful. BJ bought a huge seashell from a guy off the sidewalk that spoke no English and it was definitely fresh.

Pics from shopping

In Downtown...

One of my favorite pics

After leaving downtown, we took another taxi to Paradise Beach. This taxi was a huge van and we rode for $15 to the beach. This one actually had an ac, too. Paradise Beach was a private beach that was free as long as you spent over $10 in food/drink while you were there. It had nice clean changing rooms and bathrooms and we enjoyed our time there. BJ and Amber paid an additional $10 to play on the climbing wall and other water toys. Lily loved, loved, loved the beach. She would go into the water with no fear. There were only small tiny waves so she loved it. The sand was very different though. Nothing like Gulf Shores. It was grainy and almost like ground up sea shells. I'm curious if it wasn't man-made sand or something, which is very possible.

We ate lunch in the restaurant there and When we sat down, Lily said, "mommy, i want cornbread." After explaining to her, there was no cornbread on the menu, she says, "mommy, i want butterbeans." We finally got her to decide on the chicken fingers and fries, which I really enjoyed. Amber had quesadillos and BJ and Michelle a Volcano nacho - huge dish that they really enjoyed but it was definitely spicy.

Here is BJ explain to Lily about them not having her food requests.

After lunch, we spent some more time on the beach before leaving. This time, when we got ready to taxi back to the pier, we ended up in a small Ford Festiva. It was the tiniest car ever and we were packed in there. BJ was up front and me, Lily, Michelle, and Amber were in the back. We paid $13 for this ride, and it definitely was one we won't ever forget.

We did a bit more shopping at the pier before it started to a light rain shower. We walked back to the ship in the rain and got back onboard around 3:30 pm.

I have no complaints about Mexico. I thought it was nice, but none of us drank the water. We definitely didn't want a Sex in the City moment (if you watched the movie.)

Back onboard, we spent some time exploring around before our ship left Mexico at 4:55 pm.
Here is Lily with her ice cream.

We got ready for dinner on night 3 and we took more pics and this time Lily was in a much better mood and we got lots of her smiling and a good family picture.

At dinner..

We had fun at dinner this night and ended up dancing with all of our waiters. The sunset this night leaving Mexico was so pretty!

BJ didn't feel well this night but Lily did enjoy some time in the hot tub again and then we watched some karoake. We didn't stay awake for the midnight Mexican buffet but Michelle and Amber did and they said it was nice and some sights to be seen. We were just so tired each day, but we did sleep good. The beds were so comfy. Night 3's animals was a frog. It was so cute.

Day 4 was another full day at sea as we sailed home. We took it easy on this day. We had breakfast, then went to a towel folding class where we learning to make all of those fun animals. They taught us to make a puppy and an elephant. I just hope I can remember how we done it. Lily enjoyed that. We listened to the Disembarkation talk, and then after a trip back to the pool, the kiddie pool, and the hot tub, we had lunch, then enjoyed a very nice family nap.

At the towel folding class.

After nap, we took Lily to a Build a Bear Workshop and she built a Sailor Girl Pig. She loved this and was so happy to have an (expensive) pig, haha.

It even came with its own box and passport for the trip home.

My ice cream swan

We then got dressed up for our final supper. It was an odd menu this night. BJ thought he would be brave and try salmon and then veal parmigiana for main course. I am not sure he liked either one very much, especially considering the salmon was not cooked. He did try though. I guess you can tell we don't eat sushi.
That night we got final pics with our waiters, and all of the waiters sang "Leaving on a Fun Ship" It was cute and they did a great job.

That night, we got a puppy animal in our room.

Then we went to the Country show. We didn't stay the whole time because by then, it was after 10, and Lily was worn out.

We packed up our luggage and sat our bags out that night when we got to the room. Lily cried because she didn't want them taking our luggage, haha, poor baby was so very tired.

That night, we were sad. We had a fun trip and didn't want it to end. We all thought we could have lived on that ship for a while. I mean, food basically of all of the time, someone cleans your room, and takes care of you, you can't beat it.

I do want to mention that the staff of the ship were wonderful. They were very, very nice and we don't have a single complaint about any of them. I wanted to bring some of them home with me because they were so sweet. Everyone always remembered lily's name and spoke to her, and most of them would greet her with "Hello Princess!" if they didn't know her name. I just loved how good they were to us and they made us feel like royalty.

On Day 5, we got up early and got ready to leave. Our ship arrived in Mobile before 8 am and we waiting on our turn to disembark. We were called around 930 am and were in our car by 10:15 or so. It definitely didn't take very long at all.

All in all, we enjoyed our trip. We were glad to spend time with family and to get away for a while.

We did head straight to Cracker Barrel, for some good southern cooking, for lunch, then a quick trip to the mall, and we got home around 3:30 pm Monday afternoon.

Here are some other special highlights of our trip I don't want to forget:

- Those tiny elevators and packing 8 people in there

- Spending time with Lily in the gameroom - it was so dark in there, but it was the coldest room on the ship and she loved playing in there.

- Room U170 on the Upper Floor 6

- Waiting on the shows, and watching Lily dance and play with the spinning chairs

Hope you enjoyed reading about our trip as much as we enjoyed it! I have over 800 pics so i will be sorting through those for quite a while.