Ugh, I hate having to write up this next part because I feel so bad. Seeing the pic of the AirBnb house literally makes my stomach twist. It's fine. We survived. Okay, here goes.
We hung out all day Saturday, played cards Saturday night. The boys were sharing the bunkbed room. Grandma was in a room downstairs but the rest of us were all upstairs. This is an old house and the stairs are steep and tall. That doesn't really matter that much to the story. Actually this whole house was just so cute and had some antique charm with modern updates and I loved it. Anyway, Sunday was the day we were getting on the ship. It stormed HARD throughout the night Saturday. I guess this is pretty typical because I think it stormed the night before too. But it was loud. I think I assumed the storm had woken me up around 5 and I got up to use the bathroom. But while doing that I could hear what sounded like whimpering. I thought for a minute it might be a dog outside or something. But I decided to go down the stairs just to check. I thought there was a chance one of Sara's boys was scared of the storm. What I found was Kaden in the bathroom covered in pizza vomit. He was so sick. He had puked on his bedding too. And he wasn't done. He just kept puking. So I started the process of getting things rinsed off and in the wash. I felt bad because I don't think he knew which bedroom we were in, but I don't know if he even would've left the bathroom anyway.
Two days before on the flight Kaden had sat with Jason and Sara so I wasn't back there but they told me there was a baby puking in front of them on the plane and then they were reaching back between the seats. (I think that's true, sometimes when I try to write these blogs months later the details get blurry, especially since I heard it second hand). Anyway, everyone was convinced he had caught it from them. I don't know. Norovirus, or whatever stomach bug, was running quite rampant throughout the whole US (as evidenced by the things I saw on social media people I follow from all over and heard from friends on social media too). But where he got it wasn't important. What was important was that we needed to get him on a cruise ship and I had no idea how that process was going to go, how long we would be waiting in line or whatever. Also, one minor detail, the cruise line has us fill out a health questionnaire within 24 hours of boarding. We had all filled it out the night before, so technically I didn't lie then. But obviously his situation had changed. I wouldn't have been that worried about it if this was 2019 or earlier. But Covid really ruined cruising for awhile and I didn't know how strict they were. What if they told us he couldn't get on? I was terrified. Both for that and I just felt so bad for the little guy. He was sooooo sick. We finally found out he had been drinking water and I'm sure that's why he kept vomiting. Once I told him not to drink anymore he was able to fall back asleep for awhile. I spent a lot of time finishing up the laundry and trying to make sure we left the AirBnb in good shape...
I learned later, not definitively but from info I gathered, that they most likely would have let him on but got him right into the room and made him quarantine there for 24 hours. That's what he did anyway, but there's always the chance they would've made us all quarantine or at least have an adult stay with him at all times since he's so young. We felt pretty safe with him locked in his room with the ipad that he could message us from. And we checked in on him often but mostly he just slept. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I started making trips to the port with luggage and people. We had a pretty early boarding time so luckily the traffic was great for the first trip. Each subsequent trip got a little more busy. But I knew where I was going and it all went pretty smoothly. They let Kaden sleep until the last minute and then we had to load him in the car and take him. I dropped them at the port and then drove the Jeep away from the traffic and dropped it off with the Turo owners, then I walked back. It was not much more than half a mile.
Kaden didn't look very good. We went up and got in line. I overheard from other people checking in that they asked them if anything in their health report had changed. I saw one lady look at a girl about Kaden's age and ask her, "are you feeling sick?" Let's just say I was sweating. Then Kaden looked at me urgently saying he needed to puke and where was the bathroom... What a mess. There was a large garbage close by so Ryan walked him over there and another Royal Caribbean worker was there and said something empathetic but didn't kick us out. We had stepped out of line for that so I chose a different line than that lady I mentioned. The line we chose the lady definitely asked the kids who they were traveling with (making sure we were actually their parents and not someone trying to smuggle them to Honduras) The kids were kind of confused but they got it eventually. And she asked me if anything had changed with our health status and I just said, we are good. She let us in and we immediately took Kaden over to the soft seats to lie down. WHAT A MESS!
Ryan decided to stay there with Kaden for awhile because it was comfortable and air conditioned and we knew we couldn't get into our room for a few more hours. The rest of us boarded and told him we would look for a good place from him to rest. We found pool chairs up on the deck and it was still a little rainy and cool so it felt good. The only problem was getting him up to floor 15. I ended up carrying him. He did okay when he was lying down but trying to walk made his stomach churn. So I carried him to the elevator with his head buried in my shoulder, trying to avoid spreading any germs in the elevator. It wasn't too long before they let us in our rooms. I'm trying to remember if they kicked us off the pool deck because of lightning, or if the room was just ready so we headed down. I carried him again. There was a man in this elevator that said, "you've been carrying him for awhile." I guess he saw me earlier. Some people had commented "oh, he's so tired." I didn't really want to advertise how sick he was, but I did hide him in the corner to avoid exposing people as best as we could. Finally he got to the room and he was happy to have a bed to just sleep. He stayed there for the rest of Sunday and all of Monday too. He missed two of the fancy dinners because he just couldn't eat. We brought him some cookies and rolls and stuff but he barely touched them. I made him a drink with Liquid IV but he barely touched that either. Not a fun way to start the trip!!!!
We had some movies downloaded and he has some games that don't need wifi so he had some entertainment. They also had a few channels on the TV. The Royal Caribbean app has messaging to others in the app so we had him set up to message us too. We paid for two devices to have wifi but between Ryan and Dylan and myself we didn't share it with anyone else. It was kind of an annoyance that I had to kick one of them off every time I wanted to use the wifi for a minute, and I couldn't choose who to kick off. I was mostly annoyed because my audiobooks should've been downloaded but it kept trying to load and if I didn't have wifi it wouldn't work so I would only need wifi for a minute but it was still an annoyance.
The food. We all loved the food. Who doesn't? Dylan and Sadie both tried a lot of things that impressed me. Dylan tried lamb and lobster. Sadie ordered salmon and some other chicken or meat dishes. Always with a caesar salad too. It's nice because there was enough food that they knew they wouldn't go hungry if they didn't love their main dish. And if they didn't get enough, they could always go up to the Windjammer and fill up later. Kaden and Jason got nuggets and fruit most nights. Plus lots of desserts of course.
I love this picture of Kaden in the Windjammer on the last morning. He's just chillin' livin' his best life.
Sara wanted family pictures on Formal night, which was a great idea. They did some up top with the sunset too but those were on her phone. I happened to take this one with my phone. I would've made my kids do pictures too but Kaden was still in the room for the first formal night.
I still don't really know the story to this shirt, but they were somewhere with a raffle (I didn't go into the shops much, I don't know where they were) and Dylan won this shirt/coverup and Grandma made a big deal about how he won it for her. I don't know if he had a choice of prizes or if this was it. But Grandma ended up with a new shirt.
Sadie and I went ice skating with Josh and Jason. Ice skating is one of those things that isn't very fun if you have no experience with it. Sadie and I did ok. I wish Kaden had been able to come. I think he would've been nervous but he would've tried it. Unfortunately he was still sick in bed.
The biggest draw for me when choosing this ship were the slides and entertainment. There were lots of hot tubs and a handful of slides. One thing that was lacking was just a pool to swim around in. There were a couple small pools that would be packed full. Or they would have events like water volleyball or the belly flop contest, or the pool would just be closed for cleaning or something. Sadie likes swimming so that part was disappointing but there was plenty to do still. Sadie and I spent a lot of time in line for the Flow Rider. I felt like the boogie boarding was really easy but then I tried the surfing and it was not so easy and I got frustrated. There just isn't that many time periods when it was available and the lines get really long. I waited in line for a long time thinking I was going to do better the second time than the first, and then I did worse and I was ticked. Oh well.
Cruising with a big group is really fun because there's so much to do and you don't have to all agree on one thing. The kids quickly became comfortable with the ship (other than Kaden who missed two days) and would go off on their own. My routine was to wake up early and go to the gym while everyone else slept and got breakfast. Then we would put swimsuits on and head to the pool deck. Lay in the sun, sit in the hot tub, ride slides or flow rider, etc. Ryan played a lot of basketball and pickleball with strangers or with Kaden and Sadie. The kids could go get food whenever they wanted, and ice cream cones, which they got often. In dry clothes I did the rock wall or the dry slide. There was a zip line on the ship but I think only a couple of them did it. At Sea days were awesome.
The weather in Texas was rainy, and it wasn't all that hot until we got to Honduras and Mexico. Then is was SO hot. It was awesome. We didn't think anything at Costa Maya looked worth doing so we stayed on the ship and enjoyed things a little less crowded. Sara's family went and swam with dolphins because her kids had not done that before. I kind of wanted to do it with them but only jokingly kind of and the excursion sold out so I didn't have the choice in the end.
We booked a lot of shows too! We had dinner at 5 and that left us plenty of time to go see the shows. Not everybody wanted to do the shows, and they are all free so it wasn't a big deal if some people didn't come.
First up was ice skating. They were definitely talented. But Kylee and I just kept looking at each other like, what is this? We could not figure out the theme. It looked like they just had a bunch of random costumes so they just kept switching. Someone explained later that it all went together because of a book they referenced at the beginning or something. But it was kind of wild. I liked it though!
The next show was Grease. We ended up not bringing Sadie because first off she didn't care that much and second, our friends on board had watched it the first night and they said it was really raunchy. I wasn't all that worried but I gave Sadie the choice. She passed. The cast was talented, if a little over the top. But it was really raunchy! Much dirtier than the original movie. Why?
And last but not least, the Fine Line! This was a water show with professional divers and people flying around on ropes and this dude at the beginning with a skirt that spun in circles for a full 10 minutes straight. How did he not fall over? No clue. It was a good show and we were enjoying it...
This pic is great because this boy sitting behind us was Rachel's crush from the ship. She kept running into him at all the places. So it was hilarious when we looked through pictures later and there he is lurking behind her, lol.
I told these boys to take a picture and immediately they both pull a face. Little weirdo BFF cousins.
A couple pics from the show.
Ok, this picture is significant because it shows us all sitting in a line and Cheryl down there on the end.
At some point in the show, I think just before the tight rope walking, Cheryl got sick. She decided she needed to go to the bathroom to possibly vomit so she stood and started heading out. You can't really tell from these pictures but we were really low in the stands so there were a lot of stairs to tackle to get out of there. Cheryl walked past us, as I looked at her she just kind of shook her head. I looked around at Ryan and Sara who didn't know what she was doing either, and I decided she didn't look good and I was going to go with her. As I was standing up to follow her, she was at the stairs taking the first step holding onto the rail, and she fainted. I wasn't close enough to catch her so she went all the way down with her head resting against a couple poles. It was terrifying. I immediately pulled her head into my lap (because her feet were up the stairs and her head was lower, and just to put her head somewhere softer.) She came to pretty quickly, I asked her if anything was hurting and she said no but she was going to be sick. I won't go into too much detail. But long story short, the whole show came to a stop, Royal Caribbean medical staff rushed over. They asked a million questions (there was also this man who asked a bunch of questions because he said, "I'm a nurse" and I didn't have the energy to tell him to join the club. Cheryl really just wanted to get to a bathroom and I felt bad but I didn't think she could make it up those stairs until she recovered a little more. They gave her a towel to throw up in, and they kept asking questions. I told her she is really, really healthy. She just got light-headed with the nausea. Finally Ryan and Sara helped her to the bathroom.
I looked back at the rest of the family (along with everyone else in the stands staring at us). Rachel and Sadie were crying from worry. Apparently there was some talk about the reason Hailee got injured was because she wasn't supposed to be there because something bad was going to happen. They were really worried. I sat down for like three seconds wondering how long it would take them to start the show again, looked at Dan and said, "should we just go?" None of the kids were in the mood to sit there and act like everything was normal. So we left. The kids went back to the room, I stayed with Ryan and Sara waiting to see how she was.
It was really quite amazing that she had fallen so carefully. She sort of slumped over the handrail and slid down, and the way the two poles were there for her head to fit in, instead of smacking on the edge of the cement step. She definitely had a little bruising on her arm and maybe hip, but it could've been a lot worse.
So why did this happen? Who knows. At first she was sure it was just something she ate making her nauseated, and with nausea the lightheadedness is not uncommon. Then she started thinking she must've caught what Kaden had. But after she emptied her stomach she was doing much better. The medical staff still took her to the medical wing in the basement and ran an ekg and whatever else. They also made us fill out tracing forms, detailing where we had come from, which flight we were on, where we had stayed, what exactly had she eaten in the last few days. In the end, they sent her back to her room but made her quarantine for 24 hours.
And they made sure she stayed there. They called often, asking how she was and if she needed anything. They gave her free room service including free drinks (usually we would've had to buys drinks) and free movies for entertainment. The really unfortunate thing is that we had an excursion the next day that she would have to miss. She felt great and was pretty mad they were making her quarantine but I guess she didn't feel all that great through the night and probably wouldn't have felt great in the heat and on the ziplines anyway. But by the next night she was great and ready to get out of the room! But they told her she couldn't leave until the next morning because it was 24 hours after leaving the medical wing apparently. So dumb. We did get her some coconut shrimp from dinner and Dylan ran it down to her.
The girls found out they were giving away free charms every day at certain times so they made an effort to go get them and these were Sadie's. We bought a charm bracelet in Galveston for them to go on.
One of the big highlights for Sadie and Josh, and Rachel and Jason enjoyed it too, was hunting for hidden ducks. This is something that guests do for each other. It was really fun. They would just spend hours "duck hunting". There were people that would leave money underneath one and then post a picture on Facebook. The picture only gave a little clue where it was. Anyway, they ended up with a nice haul between the five of them.
I think that covers the fun on the ship!
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