Nothing like hopping on an ocean liner and taking a trip across the gulf. Especially, when you can take your family and meet up with some of your besties to go cruisin together. So that’s what we did. We got with the Brewsters and booked us along with Papo and Lita on a Royal Caribbean cruise down to Mexico. “Voyager of the Seas” here we come!
Being the family we are, we drove ourselves down to the port in Galveston, TX which isn’t that bad of a drive. Plus we got to stop at a few choice gas stations and try on hats. (No I didn’t let him buy that)
When we finally made it to the port, Oliver and Phinehas had the absolute best reaction to seeing a cruise ship with their own eyes. Check it out.
Departure
Departure was an experience for the boys for sure, dolphins escorted us out of the harbor, but we couldn’t quite catch them on camera. Soon after we were underway we made the mandatory trip to our muster station in case of emergencies, and the boys were given their emergency wristbands. We picked up our special drink cups for unlimited refills, and then … up to the pool deck to meet up with the Brewsters of course! UPF rash guards protected us from the blazing sun, but it was a perfect day to head out to sea.
Our dazzling beauties together.
Cruise ship pools are weird. They look humongous, but except a little part in the middle, they’re really shallow.
That wasn’t going to stop our little amphibians from having fun though.
As we rode off into the sunset, Silas took a little moment just to enjoy the ocean view from the balcony.
Across the Gulf
Breakfast time! Who can say no to unlimited waffles with chocolate syrup,
or bacon and eggs,
or pancakes,
or sausage,
or hashbrowns.
You get the idea.
After breakfast we visited the arcade, and just spent time chilling out, catching up, and relaxing.
Back in our room we were greeted with one of our towels as a neat little elephant. And then it was time to head off to our first formal dinner of the trip.
Costa Maya & Aviary
The walkway from the ship to the port was quite the trek. Somebody had to break the rules because he didn’t have a chair to sit on, but the younger crowd soldiered on. The sun was definitely cooking us along the concrete pavement.
I guess we’ll have to forgive the old man for getting tired walking down the pier.
When we made it to the port, we didn’t really do anything outside the port, there was an interesting live show of acrobats twirling around from a tall pole. Plenty of shopping to do, more on that later, and a very large aviary that we toured all together.
Now let’s talk about those shops. The night before at dinner we discovered that I didn’t have any socks to wear other than what I boarded with. Whoops! There is a really great store called Cariloha that sells clothes made with Bamboo rayon. Very soft. So I tried to buy new Cariloha socks for myself, but didn’t notice the sizes were mixed up on the pegs so I ended up with only a couple pairs that actually fit me, and Silas got the rest.
But eventually we had to head back to the boat for some more relaxing fun.
Good bye Costa Maya
Dolphinaris at Cozumel
In Cozumel, we arranged to have a dolphin encounter. It was incredible!
Good bye Cozumel
We got to see a magnificent view of a storm off in the distance as we were pulling away from the Mexican coast. No worries for us though, our captain kept us in sunny skies every day.
It was time for the Captain’s dinner and our fancy pants photo shoot.
Cruisin & Flowrider
There were little surprises around the corner all over the ship, and at the entrance to the cafe at the back of the ship was a wonderfully boisterous lady who reminded everyone to wash their hands before coming in.
More swimming in the pool, and chilling out before hitting the flowrider
The off to dinner with the Brewsters.
But after dinner Silas and I headed up to the Japanese restaurant for some delicious sushi and ice cream mochi.
Never Not Preaching
Heading Home
Prologue (aka Phillip Sleeping)
Look! The sun wears me out and for some reason Rachel likes to snap photos of me taking my siesta for some reason. So I guess you can enjoy some of those.
