Days at Sea

As I mentioned, there was a heavy fog in Galveston that delayed our trip on to the boat but I totally expected to wake up Saturday morning & find us floating out in the middle of the ocean. Imagine my surprise when I woke up, looked out the window & saw oil rigs & other boats :( We were still sitting in Galveston! Finally we left mid-morning, but because we left so late (almost 24 hours late) we were not able to make our first port of call in Key West. So our first 2 days ended up being days at sea while we booked it to the Bahamas. Luckily there was plenty to do on board, starting with Deck 9 - that's where the pools were! The girls wanted to go there first to check it all out. They had 3 pools. The first was called The Cove, which was adults only (unfortunately I never had the pleasure of visiting this one!) the second was Goofy's, which was a family pool with a large outdoor screen that constantly played movies & the third was the Aqua Lab & kids pool:

Sadie was in heaven! She spent most of her time in this area. There was the pool in the front, a splash pad behind it & then the big water slide. She rode that more times than I can count:

Apparently Sophie rode it also but I never saw her. She spent most of her time here:

It was the splash pad for the younger kids & she loved it:

She also loved the shower:

I think this was supposed to be a shower where you could rinse off when you got out of the pool, but she thought it was a shower to play in & every time I lost sight of her, she was playing in the shower.

We had 2 more days at sea towards the end of our cruise & Sadie eventually found the hot tubs by Goofy's pool:

She literally stayed in there all after noon while she watched Little Mermaid & The Lion King. Ok, she might have came out to eat lunch:

The food was actually pretty good & we all ate way too much. They had Pete's Boiler's Bites where you could get chicken strips, French fries, hamburgers, etc. & Pinnochio's Pizza. They also had a smoothie bar & an ice cream bar:

We finally got creative & learned that we could go get chocolate chip cookies & make ice cream sandwiches - that might have been my favorite treat of the week:

Speaking of cookies, the kids were excited to attend a baking class where they learned to bake cookies all by themselves! Sadie was beyond excited because she is really into cooking right now & likes to watch videos about it on her tablet. Parents had to attend, so we made it a family event:

They made sugar & chocolate chip cookies & they turned out pretty yummy!

After class, Sadie got to meet the chef:

They also had a movie theater on the ship that played movies 24 hours a day & they were mostly new releases like Finding Dory, Moana & even the new Rogue One. I really wanted to go several times but Sadie kept saying "Mom, we can go to the movies at home!". I guess that's true! I finally convinced them one time to sneak in there & we watched Finding Dory in 3D but we only stayed for half the show:

Most afternoons the girls had quiet time while Bryan & I got ready for dinner:

They never complained because they had their own living room & a tv that plays Disney 24/7 - go figure! Now that I am writing this blog, it looks like we never spent any time with friends & actually our days at sea, we really didn't. I think everyone kind of did their own thing. Bryan & I liked to run on their outdoor track or go to the gym & their kids thought it was too cool outside for the water. It was chilly with the wind, but never too chilly for Sadie!

On a final note, they had these big port windows all over the ship & Sadie was obsessed with them. Every time she would see one, she would run ahead & sit in it & stare out. She loves the ocean just as much as I do: