Check this out: I was NOT up early.  Nope.  Not today.  I think the pace of the last, um, six months caught up with me and I had to cry “Uncle.”  We were not on any tight schedule, and the extra sleep didn’t hurt us any. 

We were at the pier long before we were ready to disembark.  The waves and the wind seemed rough to us, although we are not experts.

We headed to the buffet this morning, because we’d knew it would be faster.   It really is a good buffet.  So many choices and it was always well staffed and well stocked.  I still prefer the MDR, but this was not a bad second choice.

As I was researching our ports of call, I had the most trouble with Costa Maya.  There is no shortage of possible activities in Costa Maya, but none of them seemed to rise to the top for us.  There are a lot of opportunities to go see Mayan ruins, or to snorkel; but those are not things we were at all interested in.  I wanted a beach, and we needed something inexpensive as other days had more costly excursions. 

Nan decided she needed a day off, and this was the day to do it.  The rest of us were off the ship around 9:15 A.M.  Disembarking here was very easy. 

There are dozens of beach clubs in the area and comparing them is like shopping for mattresses.  But Mitsugirly from Cruise Critic had been to half-a-dozen places in the area and I ended up picking Blue Kay Beach Club.  Their website wasn’t the greatest, but I followed them on facebook for a few months before we went and was able to ask them questions about their facility as they popped into my head.

Costa Maya has a nice port area with lots of shopping.  They also have a system of trams that you can ride from the ship to the port area, and another set you can ride from the port area down the Malecon (main street) of beach clubs. 

We opted for the open air tram.  They charged us $3 per person, but the two little girls were free.
It was a nice, but VERY windy ride.   

Replica along the road.

We rode the tram to the first stop and then walked back toward the ship about one-third of a mile.  It was sunny and hot, but very windy.  It was what I call sunburn weather – too comfortable. 

We picked Blue Kay in part because they have no entry fee.  They just ask that you buy something to eat while you are there.  Or so I read. 

When we got there they asked for $5 per person 12 and over and it included one drink.  We were fine with that.  I figure it actually cost us less than what I’d anticipated.  We paid for Marie, too, even though she wasn’t of the age; we just know these folks work hard for not much money.  They gave us each a blue band.

The sand was great here.  The water was a little chillier than Honduras, but still really comfortable.  The view was sort of dull, but in a peaceful way.  While they had water things to rent, we didn’t pursue renting anything.  We just sort of hung out. 

We could see the ship from the beach. 

It was super uncrowded; our club was the first in a miles-long stretch of clubs.
There were a few snorkelers out there and some small grassy patches near shore and some larger ones just a bit out from us.  A snorkeler John got talking to said when they were there a few years ago they saw someone get stung by something.  We weren’t interested in exploring much anyway (I know – what kind of ocean people are we?).

All that UV protective clothing… and she sunburnt her legs. 

We almost forgot to order our drinks.

Our late breakfast made us not that hungry for lunch so we weren’t in a hurry to get back to the ship.  When we were ready to head back the bartender called a cab for us.  The taxi only charged $2 per person over 12 for a ride back to the ship.

We poked around the shops just a bit, but didn’t buy anything. 

We hadn’t had a chance to do the ropes course yet, so we had ourselves up there half-an-hour before it opened to be first in line.  This didn’t work as well as we thought, because they sent half of us back to our staterooms to change clothes.  Um. Ok.

John stayed on the ground the first time through to take photos. 
They have a mini-course for the little ones.

We all took turns on the plank. 
The “plank” is the reason I booked this cruise line, by the way.  When I first pulled up NCL.com on the internet the first image I saw was a man on the plank.  I figured this was the ship for my family. 

After I zipped I got off so John could get on.

Dinner was at La Cucina, NCL’s specialty Italian restaurant.  This was Cher’s home-base.  I must say, for as much as I love Italian food in general, I’d probably not pay extra to eat there.  The portions were small, and they weren’t all that exciting.  It was also awkward the way they made a table for 10.  It ended up creating two seats with large table legs in the way of pulling the chair in.  We were not comfortable while we ate.
I hadn’t had much chicken during the week, so I tried to order that.  I say tried, because the waiter told me it was very dry and talked me out of it.  My sister did end up getting it and thought it was fine.

John  got tiramisu again for dessert which I tasted.  (I also had some in the buffet one afternoon.)  It was good, but I still give the Tropicana tirumisu a higher rating. 

I got ricotta cheese cake which was nice, but not exceptional.  Although, I must admit, I might just have been getting fooded out.

I don’t have a photo of Stewart’s dessert. Cher had asked the chef to make him a special dessert.  It was some kind of rich vanilla custard/crème brulee thing with fruit, but not exactly crème brulee… how is that for clear?  I had a taste of that too.  It was amazing!

The boys played some mini-golf and hung out with Craig, while the older girls went to their club for a little while.  Who is Craig?  Oh, just the bartender they befriended.  He manned the bar closest to the mini-golf, right near the buffet.  It wasn’t heavily trafficked in the evening hours, and my boys talked with this young man from St. Lucia a lot.  He liked to give Nigel wisdom, such as: “You need to drink more water; that Mountain Dew isn’t good for you.”

They all came back to their cabin somewhat early as they wanted to watch a movie on the movie channel. 

Speaking of the movie channel, the TV choices in the staterooms is awful.  We never watch much TV, but we often use it in hotel rooms, etc., as a treat for the little girls while the big ones are getting ready, etc.  Lots of NCL specific stations, some news channels, a movie channel, and a pay-movie channel.  The pay-movie channel does have movies for $0.00, so that worked out at one point.  I’m including this info for folks who do use a TV on vacation.

 

Belize City was a replacement port announced about six months prior to the trip.  The original port was to be their new private island, however construction delays pushed back the opening at least a year at this point.

I woke early, and thought I’d try something different and went to O’Sheehans.  I didn’t like this as much because it had almost zero view of the ocean, and it had TVs that although the volume was low, it was still distracting.  And when another couple came in they sat them right next to me, despite the fact the restaurant was all but empty.

I don’t have many photos of the morning.  This was the point in the trip where you should have a routine; but, in fact, you do not.
We could barely make out the mainland when we anchored.

We ate a lot of yogurt parfaits and peaches and blueberries in the mornings.

Pound cake french toast with dark chocolate syrup.  Yes it’s real.  I never did have it.

I will also say that while we very much enjoyed our trip and would absolutely cruise with NCL again, they aren’t stellar with getting off at ports.  We’d booked this day’s excursions through the ship and they did have our tickets waiting for us in our staterooms when we boarded.  They also told us where to meet them shore-side.  But they did not tell us anything about tendering.  Early in the AM they had signs in the elevators that directed people to Tropicana on deck 7 for tendering.  When we arrived at Tropicana, it was closed.  That kind of thing. 
When we asked others what they understood us to do, no one knew what to do. 

Finally, we found a crew member who got us to the right place.  Along with many hundreds of other people. 

It took a while to get on a tender.  And then we were on there like sardines.  I didn’t take many photos there, either. 

We were told to check in at 10:45AM I think, and we were there in plenty of time.  Our tourguide, Lourdes, directed us to shop or look around the port and be back on time.  It was tremendously hot and exceedingly humid.  It was like a city-sized sauna packed with people.  I loved it.  I just do love it.  The other nine members of my party weren’t as enamored.  I suggested to John that the purchase of soft drinks for the kids might generate the kind of goodwill that NATO only dreams of, and we went in a pharmacy and let them each pick a bottle.  We did decide not to purchase Flexeril, Percocet, and Allopurinol…  I would have taken a photo of that, but signs strictly forbade it.  (And I Belized their threats.)

We finally boarded an “air conditioned motor coach” which was nicer than any other vehicle we saw in this beautiful, but underprivileged country.  We had a 35 minute drive inland.  Lourdes provided an informative and impressive history of the city and country, and a vivid description of life in Belize City these days.  The time flew by.  She was great at what she does.

They rely 90% on tourism.  That’s a very volatile thing to rely on.  😦

Some photos John got from the bus.

This IS a park, but it is NOT a beach.  The coastline is nothing but rocks.  It’s sad that a country that needs tourists was not blessed with beaches.  😦

This is a major river.  I did not catch the name.  I did catch the fact that it is loaded with crocodiles and other unsavory water animals.  We didn’t stop for a dip.

We got to our destination: Bacab Jungle Park.  It is basically a lovely pool, some pathways, some food, and a few opportunities to rent kayaks or horses.

The bus let us off at what can only be described as the end of a dirt path.

We walked 300 yard through some lush foliage until we came to the pool area and were promptly met by this guy.

I didn’t take any photos for the longest time then.  We were HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We just wanted in the pool.  We reapplied sunscreen and made haste to the water.

After we cooled off we got our plates of food.  This was the most authentic food we ate on the vacation.  I felt as though our other destinations American-ized their food. 

After we were cooled off and fed, I went off to take more photos.

This is where people could kayak.  I did not see anyone do it.  There are crocs in there, we were told. 

That is a waterslide on the left.  It is short, but FAST.  We all tried it.

We have another fish in the family.

These guys would come right up under the tables.

Once again I was one of the last families out of the pool.

At first I felt cheesy back home as I booked an in-land “jungle park” excursion for our family.  I’m really glad we did it.  They clearly prided themselves on service, and it was the closest thing to a relaxing day we had. 

We got back on board our bus, and Lourdes talked with us some, but also encouraged siestas.  Some Butlers took her up on it.

Once we got back to the pier and the shopping district (I am kicking myself for no photos there) we moved toward the tenders.  These tenders were not NCL’s own lifeboats, as our tenders had been on Princess in 2014.  The tenders we used for Belize were Belizean.  On both the way to and from Belize they not only shared safety details and information about Belize, but they were also very friendly and very upfront that they depend on our tips. 

I stopped on the pier a moment to try to get a shot of our ship in the distance.  I was not able to get it (line moving too quickly) BUT I was “able” to get separated from my family and ended up getting routed to the top deck of the tender, while my family had boarded on the lower deck. 

It afforded me lots of opportunities for taking photos.

I should probably turn in my camera for lack of meaningful photos this day.  But we had a good time.  I swam so much my hands were pruney. 

We cleaned up for dinner quickly as we had dinner reservations at Cagney’s, NCL’s premium steakhouse.  We’d heard a lot of good things about it.  We weren’t disappointed.

Many of us enjoyed the shrimp cocktail.

Even the really tired travelers.

My steak was perfect, if not ginormous.
Nigel opted for lobster and prime rib.

Stewart had preordered a Porterhouse based on Dad’s recommendation.  And he was not disappointed.  He also had asked if he could have a grilled tomato.  Grilled tomatoes are something Stewart first tried on DCL in 2014 and we have since learned to make ourselves.  They are some of his favorites.

This is someone’s seafood dish.  I think Kelly’s or Marie’s.  My kids ate enough Calamari this week to sink the Nautilus. 

This was the joke of the meal.  This is my side of onion rings.  They were cold and gross; all four of them.

My mushrooms were decidedly much better.  I shared with Tab.

Desserts were pretty good. 

Oh – and if kids order “cookies” of the kids’ dessert menu they get a plate for FOUR big cookies.  FOUR???  We helped her every night. 

My apple crisp dish was a delicious, if not rare, departure from chocolate. 

Hanny ordered the brownie from the adult menu, as opposed to the kid one.  She decided after that night to stay with the kids’ desserts.  She declared this one as being too rich.  Her words.  Yes, she’s been hanging out in fancy restaurants too much. 

The big kids went to clubs or to play mini golf.  I took the little girls to the room.  They were excited to see tonight’s towel animal, and even more tickled to see Figaro incorporated.

Anna saw us head in and came to say goodnight.  My girls really liked to visit with her and she was super chatty and just loved the girls.  We continue to pray for Anna.

It was another good day. 

 

When we first booked this cruise, it was because I had wanted to take the family to Cozumel to visit Playa Mia waterpark.  That meant a Western Caribbean itinerary.  The full offering from NCL was Roatan, Honduras; Harvest Caye, Belize; Costa Maya, Mexico; and Cozumel, Mexico.  I knew nothing about the first three ports and took to the Cruise Critic message forums to learn more. 

Harvest Caye is a private island owned by NCL that was slated for completion November 2015 that has now been bumped out to November 2016.  The replacement port was named as Belize City, Belize about 6 months before we’d left. 

There is a woman on Cruise Critic with the user name Mitsugirly who has taken dozens of cruises, with the majority being on NCL.  She writes very detailed trip reports (FAR more detailed than this one) with thousands of photos and a great deal of good-to-know information.  She had visited all of our anticipated ports and did a number of excursions in each one.  I read all of her reports and took note.

One of the first jewels I noted was Little French Key, a private island off the Island of Honduras.  I was absolutely intrigued but wrote it off early because of a swimming jaguar and high admission price.

Months went by and I chose an excursion, only to have us decide in February or so that Little French Key was by far the best option.  We were able to negotiate a lower price, as well, with our group of 10.  And they no longer had the swimming jaguar.

I woke up early again and headed to Savor taking photos of the ship along the way.

O’Sheehan’s is a complimentary 24 hour eatery with a sports bar feel to it.  It spans the ship from starboard to port with an open area in the center where you can see into the Atrium.  We never dined here as a family.

Looking down into the Atrium.  They played movies in the Atrium, although we never got a handle on when and what…  it could be exceedingly loud in the Atrium mid-day through evening.  I have no idea how anyone could even hear a movie down there. 

Empty at 6AM however.

Mid-ship chandelier that spanned decks 6, 7, and 8.

Called…

Art Gallery – the displays changed frequently.  Sometimes being changed out mid-day and again in the evening.

Atrium from deck 6 looking up to O’Sheehan’s

Outside Illusionarium, where we ate Sunday night.

Other areas I found but we never visited.

We did need to use the internet café one evening to file Stewart’s work availability.  We’d forgotten to do that while in Florida.  Cost $21 for 17 minutes.  Grrrr.

The name of the Getaway theater.  I never even saw inside the theater once.
I collected my family and we headed to Savor for breakfast.  We were tickled to see Cher there.  We learned that was where she worked out of in the mornings.  We ate there another two mornings.  It was  nice to have her watching Stewart’s back.  As we waited for our table we visited a neat replica of the ship.



Into our second week of vacation, Hanny was getting very good at placing orders.  LOL.

The good news was we were the only ship scheduled for Roatan for the day, which meant we would get a position at the pier and avoid tendering.  The bad news was we weren’t docking until 10 A.M. 

It was hard waiting.  It was cool to watch us head into port.

The problem with docking later is more people are up and ready to disembark when permission is granted to disembark.  It was painfully congested.

Looking back at the ship.  While at first I didn’t think it was very pretty (not a fan of hull art) she was starting to grow on me.

After we disembarked we were inundated with offers to take us places/sell us excursions.  We were following some vague instructions I’d had sent to me from Little French Key, but did go ahead and answer people who asked if they could help us.  When we got the same answer twice I was comfortable we were on the right track.  We found our liaison who vaguely directed us down a street.  We eventually found a group that was going to LFK and hung out in an alley waiting for our cabs.  Our family got our own 12 pax van.  Same kind we drive at home. 

It took half-an-hour to get to a small pier where a smaller watercraft would take us over to that private island in the background. 

We only waited about five minutes for our boat to come.

When we arrived to the island we were met by a young man who gave us a tour of the island.  It was breathtaking.

They have a number of rescued animals.  We did not spend much time looking at them.

Our admission fee covered a lunch and two drinks each.

We just jumped in and had fun.  Well….. some of the kids weren’t as excited as others of us about being there. For real.  How the amazingness of this location was lost on them is lost on me.

I don’t really know how many beaches there were.  I mean, it is an island, it’s mostly all beach.  But each section offered its own features.  We planted here at this one and didn’t really explore a ton.  We had great seats, not too far from restaurant and restroom.  “Our” beach got a little more crowded midday, but not by much. 

John and the oldest three enjoyed jumping from this platform, and later swinging from the rope.

The bulk of our day included swimming and paddleboards and kayaks, in no particular order.  Tabitha met a friend from the kids’ club who was there with her family.   We did have a hiccup with lunch when they told us we could have pizza for the kids instead of the plate of Honduran food.  The waiter took it as an order for six whole pizzas.  We wondered why it was taking forever to get our food.  When the delivered out the first two whole pizzas we all clued in and canceled half of them.  But not before we’d spent an entire hour in the dining area.

Why, yes, that is Coke in my baby’s sippy cut.  No judging.  It was VACATION!

Who doesn’t love a restaurant where you can play on the “floor”.

Except for the rock lobster, it was good.

Swing area.

Some of the grounds.  The owners live on the island.  They also rent out tree houses for people to stay.

We headed over to meet Rico.

Okay.  So my husband and mom are great folks.  But they don’t get island time.  They are a little worried about the ship leaving without us.  I suppose it is good that there are those kind of people. Truth is, everywhere else in the world, I am those people.  But days like these?  Nuh, huh.  I wasn’t going to leave until I had to.  Had. To.  And – we were not the last people to leave the island.  But I wasn’t leaving until we had to.

As we got back to the pier, we saw what they were going to take us back to the port in.  A school bus.  Too funny.  Hanny and Katriel fell asleep.

We got back on the ship and had plenty of time to clean up.  We didn’t have to be to dinner until 7:30 P.M.  It was our latest night.

Tab & Marie remembered that something they were interested in going on in their club that night.  It took a bit of back and forth, and in the end Tab decided she wanted to go and Marie chose to eat with us.

Dinner was at the Tropicana and I am sorry to say we don’t have much in the way of photos.  It was one of the Main Dining Rooms, therefore complimentary.  It was every bit as excellent as the specialty restaurants.  The menu was more diverse, to be honest.  The only thing that took away from the awesomeness of this meal was that it was at the very end (aft) of the ship.  And the ship?  She was a rockin.  I was really feeling it.  John was really feeling it.  Nigel and Nan were really feeling it.  In the end, Nigel and John ended up leaving before dessert.  John took the little girls (whose desserts had come early) and headed back to the room to take a meclizine.  The timing was too bad, really.  This restaurant was one of our favorites.

Me?  I held in there.  And ordered two desserts.

The best tiramisu I’ve had in a long time.  Carrot cake was just ok.

We all were in bed around 10, I think.  Island time…. 😉

 

I was up early and dressed quickly.  I grabbed my Bible and cameras and headed out. 
It was warm and humid and I loved it.  My camera did not, however, so photos had to wait.  I went to an MDR hoping to score some hot chocolate.  I picked Taste over Savor for absolutely no reason whatsoever.  The sit mid-ship on deck 7 across from one another.  They gave me a window seat and at that early hour there were very few other patrons. 

I headed back to the room after about 30 minutes and found my family had gotten up.
This is the deck on the room John and I shared with Johanna and Katriel: 12182.  The other stateroom was slightly smaller, but had an angled deck as it was the last stateroom of that category before the larger ones start: 12180.
As you can see, we were perfectly around the corner from Splash Academy, which was a great location. 


And we headed back down to Taste together.
It took a few minutes for a table for 10 to be arranged. 

I met a woman in the restroom who had a DCL lanyard on.  I chatted with her a few minutes.  She had 27 DCL under her belt, as well as oodles of numbers of every other line she could rattle off. She likes them all and said we’d love this ship.  She did say, however, she thought that when I got off NCL I would find I was within a few hundred dollars of what DCL would have been.  Seeing as how DCL base fare was almost $6,000 MORE than the NCL base fare I wondered out loud where she thought I would see the charges.  She was speechless.  She asked what kind of rooms I’d compared and was absolutely astonished we’d gotten the rate we’d gotten on NCL.  She also acknowledged that as a FL resident she never saw such gaps in pricing.  That’s not me boasting, that’s me overwhelmed with gratitude.  She acknowledged we’d saved a bundle and that we would nowhere come near that number.

Since I am mentioning restrooms, I want to say now how great their bathrooms are.  This ship is only two years old and you can tell some tremendous thought went into the design.  The bathrooms were large, easy to find, and plentiful.  They also had automatic toilet flushing, automatic soap dispensers, automatic faucets, and automatic dryers.  They also had automatic towel dispensers and garbage cans by all the exit doors, with signs that said to use a paper towel to open the doors.  All the enter/exit doors opened inwardly. 
We got to the sports deck and found it oppressively busy.  I sincerely hoped this wasn’t going to be our lot for the entire cruise. 
There are limited hours for each activity, and from pre-trip reading, I knew there was very limited hours for the bungee trampoline.  Although it was hot and we wanted to swim, we all reasoned that it was worth the wait to get this done now in case it wasn’t available later in the week.
Johanna was too small so she worked to conquer this thing.  It took her a while, but she made it.
I had to go back to the room to get shorts and socks for those not wearing them. 



By the time they each had their turns we were ready to melt.  The ropes course line was very long so we bailed on that activity in lieu of waterslides.
Two of the waterslides say no piercings or metal bathing suits whatsoever.  I had to skip that one that day because my suit had metal.  Tab had to miss them all together because her pierced ears were too new (and only recently healed of infection). 

The little girls played in the kids’ water area all day long.  It was a great set up IMO.  There was an inner, free form shape with about 6-10 inches of water and a slide.  There was an outer free form shape with sprayers and seats and such.  Along both areas were bench-style barriers that adults could sit on to watch the kids.  I spent many hours on the benches and in the water.  Right next to it was the salt-water family pool.  My above ground pool at home is bigger.  But it was never such kid soup that it felt dangerous to let Tabitha go into it.   There was a life guard by the family pool, and the waterslides were somewhat next to/above this set up.  There were adjacent bathrooms and this whole section was between two bars.  What was NEVER available were lounge chairs.  Chair hogs must have been out very early to claim these, too, I might add.

This first sea day was the most crowded we ever found decks 15 – 17. 

Around 2:40 P.M. Marie went to the Splash Academy to join her age group on the sports deck for some games.  Kids over 10 are allowed to check themselves in and out of the club.  The deal with signing out, however, is they have to have been there for two hours.

Did I mention I hung around the kids’ pool all day?  I love this kind of thing.  They are happy splashers, I am in the sun; it’s all good.

After 3 P.M. the boys queued to do the rock climbing wall.   They were the only ones who ever did it.  Maybe next time.

And, John and I stayed by the water.  Occasionally, we would head up to some slides with Tabitha, or go watch Marie play.

Around 4 P.M. we decided to head in to clean up for dinner.  We asked Marie to meet us in the stateroom by 4:45 P.M.
Our dinner reservations were for Teppanyaki at 5 P.M.  Our chef, Michael, kept us in stitches.  And while I can’t say it was all super yummy (some Asian food thrills me, other dishes do not) the service was amazing.  The maitre d’ for Teppanyaki had been in communication with Cher and Stewart had a wonderful, personal meal prepared for him out of sight.  But we all enjoyed watching our “Japanese cowboy” make dinner.

Every one got edamame (gag) and salty soup (gaggity gag).  (Everyone but Stewart.  He got a garden salad.  Lucky him.)

The Seaweed Salad was delicious.

The meat and veggies were fantastic.  And the portions were enormous.  The assistant maitre d’ of Teppanyaki asked how are meal was.  With all the enthusiasm a five year old can project, Johanna said, “The chicken! is EXCELLENT! Yum!”  And it really was.

Dessert was lame.  But we’d fix that later. 

We tried to take some family photos.  I had visions of doing this after dinner each night.  Nope.  It was always crazy windy outside and/or my camera would be too foggy and need more time to warm up than we were often willing to take.  Meanwhile, inside was often too dark.

The boys went up to play mini golf, and the older girls went to their club.  So John and I took the youngest two to Savor for dessert. 

We really enjoyed meeting one of the supervisors in this restaurant.  He is from India and showed us pictures of his daughter.  On both the DCL cruise and this one, we were regularly approached by crew members who would talk with our kids.  They would ask how old and then talk freely with us about their children.  I am always so humbled that these folks bend over backward to serve us in this opulence, while they go 7-9 months without seeing their own children and families.  My kids loved to talk with these folks. 
We headed back to the room, and even with our clocks having turned back the night before we were tired, early.  Katriel was asleep by 9:15 P.M.  Wait.  Maybe it was 10:15 P.M.  That pesky time change…

 

did not go smoothly.
I was up early and after hot chocolate and Bible decided I’d tackle that power room door that was locked from the inside.  Of course it wasn’t a simple knob that locked by pushing in a center circle.  No.  This was the kind of lock you twist the lock to engage it.  Nice.  Now, I do have experience with this type lock, but I’ve always had an arsenal of do-dads to address it with.  Nary a bobby pin or screwdriver amongst our packed items.  I did try to MacGyver it with a paper clip, but the door knob was too smart for me.  Despite the fact we had gobs of stuff to do to get ready to leave we decided it would be best if John headed up to Walmart for some tools.  And an umbrella stroller for the ship. 

The rest of us went after eating as much as we could from the fridge and then starting the miserable work of throwing out food.  Ugh. 
John got back with a super-cute hippo stroller and a case of small screwdrivers.  While I was hoping for a tool designed precisely for unlocking this type of knob, I thankfully did get the stinking thing open.  I had been afraid the property management company would call a locksmith and keep all or some of our $300 security deposit.
Somehow we got 10 people and all their luggage into/onto the van, with certain items separated out because they weren’t going on the ship with us. 
Originally I had scheduled us 10:30 A.M. boarding times for the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) Getaway.  I’m still chuckling about that. 
Our rental house was calculated to be 3.5 hours from the Port of Miami, but people had warned me it would take longer than that.  Of course it takes a lot longer if you have to travel northeast before you can travel southeast because you have to turn in the cooler and rain covers that you’d rented with your stroller but not returned with the stroller.  Nice, no?

At some point we left the rental house and programmed in the address for Kingdom Strollers and the Port of Miami.  GPS had us arriving around 1:40 P.M.  All aboard is 2:00 P.M.  Who doesn’t like to start vacation stressed?

The good news is the kids were supernaturally well-behaved in spite of the fact that four of them were crammed in the way back of the van together.  They watched Muppet’s Treasure Island on a 9 inch screen, followed by a few episodes of Andy Griffith. 

I prayed a LOT that we’d make it on time.  Mercifully, the roads were clear and we made no errors in following the GPS directions (and that is saying a LOT given the mess of roads in Miami!).  And we pulled into the port at 1:30 P.M.

We tried to drop Nan and Kelly off at Terminal B where they needed to check in, but the attendant told us we were not allowed to pull over, even though countless other vehicles were pulled over.  We went up a way and tried again, but were again told, “Nah, man, you can’t do that.  They will give you a ticket.”  We still aren’t sure WHY we couldn’t, nor do we know who might have given us a ticket, but we found the parking garage and unloaded.  Thankfully, our van fit, and thankfully, there were large open areas available to park and unload it.  Sadly, it was a bit of a walk for my mom and sister to get back to Terminal B, but the boys helped them with their luggage up to the luggage check.

We had to go in via Terminal C.  It moved along well enough, and John went with his three co-assigned kids and I went with my three co-assigned kids to the check in.  We had three questions we needed to ask on check in, yet I don’t remember them now.  What I DO remember is that he and I got different answers, or no answers.  It was sort of ridiculous, to be honest.  But we were checked in by 2 P.M. and let out a great sign of relief.  Surprisingly, we met smack dab up with Nan and Kelly and were able to board the ship together. 
It was absolutely not as pleasant as it was boarding the Disney Magic or Princess Caribbean Princess.
We were all hungry and dinner was scheduled for 5:30 P.M.  We asked a crew member what our options were for lunch at this time (2:15 P.M.) expecting we had missed our chance to eat in a Main Dining Room (MDR) and she concurred.  She added that we would have to hurry if we wanted anything, because mandatory life board drill was starting at 3 P.M.  Seeing as how we were on deck 6 at the time and the available buffet was on deck 15 and we still had all our carry-ons, we reasoned it wouldn’t make sense to try to get up there to food when we had to be back to deck 6 by 3 P.M.  Plus we wanted to dump our stuff. 

We were so late that staterooms were more than ready.
Stewart gasped when he saw how small it was.  I didn’t think it was too bad.  I showed him all the nooks and crannies for storage.  Our luggage was already in the hallway.  Yay.

The adjoining room was slightly larger and the bathroom had a tub.  There are only so many adjoining rooms for 4 on the ship, and it worked out nicely to have a tub for the little girls.  It also had a double sink.  We decided to sleep the older four kids in the first room and the little girls and John and I in the second.  This would allow the little girls to enjoy an earlier bedtime.
There was a letter in our stateroom addressed to Stewart stating they had his food allergies on record and if we needed assistance to contact them. 
The ship and elevators were painfully crowded and I wondered if it would be miserable all week (it was not).  There are two banks of 8 elevators on the ship, for the record.
We returned to deck 6 and worked on loading up the iConcierge app to allow us to text amongst ourselves.   I’d read it would cost $7.95 per device.  The crew member told me it would be $9.99 per device.  It charged us $12.99 device.  Ah – that NCL nickel and diming I’d heard about? 

The drill took For.Ev.Er.and was the least organized I’d been to.   But thankfully it was near a bar and we were all able to break in our soda packages.

Once the drill was over we ran to the buffet for small snacks.to hold us over for an hour. 

We went to the kids’ clubs and registered our kids for their appropriate age groups.  Marie and Tabitha were Dolphins in the 10-12 club, and Katriel and Johanna were turtles in the 3-5 club.  We took the boys up to Entourage and had them register there, too. 
When we booked our cruise back in March one of the perks was to have the dinner show Illusionarium free if you went on the first night.  They had since removed that (and a LOT of other things) since we had booked, but our travel agent went to bat for us and had it arranged.
It was okay.  I wasn’t too impressed, though. 

Although they gave you a menu, it was more or less to inform you what they would be bringing you as it is a set dish.  It was edible, but unimpressive.  The startling thing was how lackadaisically they approached food allergies.  I had read many reports saying how well NCL responds to dietary restrictions, so we were taken aback a bit by this.  We comforted ourselves by reasoning we could head up to the buffet afterward for more food. 
After dinner we poked around the deck a little and worked our way to deck 15 aft where the buffet was, and then up to deck 16 aft where the mini golf was.

So – as we found the soft-serve ice cream we also found those attendants to be just as uninterested in helping us navigate the buffet with food restrictions.  If things stayed the same, this was going to be a long, disappointing, and stressful week for Stewart.
We decided that maybe John and Stewart should head to the customer service and see if there was anyone they could talk to about Stewart’s dining.  I headed back to the room with the other kids.  Marie and Tab wanted to check out their kids’ club, and when Johanna saw the kids having fun, she asked to stay, too.  I took Katriel back to the room for bed. 
John and Stewart returned to the room triumphant.  Having stopped by the customer service desk they were quickly linked to an assistant maitre d, Cher Fuentes.  They were directed to a restaurant on deck 7 to meet with her.  She walked them through the menus for the next three nights and Stewart pre-ordered his dinners.  She was very helpful and informative.John went back to pick up the girls from the club.  Johanna was in tears.  She said she missed her mama.  I think she was kind of tired.
We had met our stateroom hostess, Anna, when we dropped off our bags earlier.  She informed us that tonight we needed to turn our clocks back an hour.  Nothing says vacation better than an extra hour of sleep!

Everyone was in bed by 10:30 ish, I believe. 

 

There was no alarm set for Saturday, and I actually slept past 8 A.M.  I literally shot out of bed when I woke up.  I’d scared myself sleeping so late!  Others started waking slightly afterward. 
The doorbell rang by 9 A.M. by a courier from Kingdom Strollers.  We had rented a VERY nice stroller for our trip and were extremely pleased with the product and service.  There were umbrella-style strollers in the garage we could use today if we needed it.  We did not have a stroller for the cruise. 

Nan made eggs and John made toast as I quickly gathered all the dirty laundry and loaded up a suitcase and laundry basket.  John helped me to the van and I headed to a Laundromat I’d scoped out from home months earlier.  It was clean, bright, and I had seven day’s worth of 8 people’s laundry clean and (mostly) folded in about 80-90 minutes. 

I was back in no time and joined them swimming.

We decided to go to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) around 2 P.M.

Now – this is where I confess that I had NOT read up at all on what was going on there, except to know it had changed names and had some new restaurants.  I did NOT know it was a hot mess of construction.  Our visit two years ago had us enjoying the same adjoining parking lots we’d always found RIGHT near the stores we liked to visit.  I knew they had went to a parking garage in that area.  I did NOT know it wasn’t finished yet.  We had a frustrating walk from a temporary lot in a bank to the marketplace area.  The first store we walked into (Once Upon a Toy) had a gigantic Star Wars section.  HUGE.  So fun to look at.  We had a significant amount of money left of our Disney gift cards and so many souvenirs to chose from. 

Here’s that thing where they tell me how much they love the books they are looking at and Amazon is telling me wait til we get home.

I bought nothing.  Not one thing piqued my interest enough to take home! 

We shopped for quite a while and our intention was to find somewhere to have dessert.  We decided on T-Rex.  It was fun enough, but we were fools.  See – they advertised a dessert as “enough for 4” but we doubted whether or not they truly understood how much we liked chocolate and how much we could eat, so we ordered three of those dessert plates for six of us.  And, yup, we threw a lot of it out.  Who knew?  (psssst….. they did)

She couldn’t figure out how they knew her name.  We rewatched it a few times in the noisy T-Rex shop and figured out the bird’s name was Tabitha!

We absolutely ruined ourselves for dinner.  I had over packed food for the vacation house and we determined what we would toss out, what we could leave in the car for a week, and what we could leave for the housekeeper.  We packed up as much as we could for a smooth exit in the morning and headed to bed with sweet memories of Disney and great expectations for the cruise.

That’s when I saw the cooler and rain covers from Kingdom Strollers.  The ones we’d be charged $60 if we didn’t return.  I emailed them, and they quickly responded even though it was now around 10 P.M.  We could return them to their distribution center in the morning.  It was in the opposite direction of where we needed to go, of course.  And it was about that time that we realized the baby had pushed in the lock to the powder room door and shut it.  From the outside.

to be continued….

 

Another early morning.  I think we got 5½ hours of sleep.  Surprisingly, everyone got up easily and remained cheerful the entire day.  PTL.

We had another breakfast at Crystal Palace scheduled for 8 A.M.  We were anticipating a back up again at security, so we made sure we left a few minutes earlier than Thursday.

We were at MK parking before the attendants again today.  This marked five out of five days that we did not need to show proof of any on-property reservation for free parking.  We parked in essentially the same spot as yesterday, and interestingly, the same spot as when we visited 5 years ago.  Either they have preferred parking somewhere else altogether, or we were so early we ended up in what would later be preferred parking???

I packed a princess dress for each of the four girls and en route to MK we shared with the kids our plans for dining in the castle for dinner.  Eating at Cinderella’s Royal Table was something I never dreamt we would ever do.  But when I looked into it last November, we decided we were going to go all or nothing this trip.  With all of our dining paid for from credit card incentives, this would be the only meal we had to buy out of pocket.  All six kids were excited about the news.  Seeing what was inside the castle was of interest to us all.

We were delighted to see security was already fully operational and there was no line outside the bag check.  We moved right through quickly and waited just before the tapstiles with about 100 or so other people.  We were walking down Main Street by 7:45 A.M.  Splendid.

TIgger showed Nigel how to do his hair…

At RDRD we headed right over to 7 Dwarves Mine Train.  I really do like that ride.  I know it isn’t cool to admit it.  But I’ve never been cool.  We saw a cat in the exit route. 
They all headed to Adventureland as I went to get a second batch of FP+ with our extra Magic Bands. We already had rides on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, and Peter Pan  I got an extra Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and an extra Splash Mountain.  I also got a Pooh ride.  We’ve always liked to re-ride our favorites.

I was only a few boats behind them for Pirates of the Caribbean.  I confess I was texting a friend as I rode in a boat with two strangers.  The boats before and after us were empty.

She asked how I felt about WDW.  She was a frequent visitor in the past, as we were.  Their last trip this past September had been their first in five years as well.  Their take home was that changes had ruined WDW.  While I agree with her on how miserable the changes are I was able to say that, in fact, we were having an amazing time.  The best I could liken it to was an athlete or performer training for a role.  I feel like I have been prepping for this trip, at least marginally, since 2013, and full-force since March 2015.  I’d read a ton and engaged the strategies I thought I needed to improve yield.  And it felt like it was paying off.  Would I like every vacation to require this much effort?  No way.  But for this particular trip, we were having a blast.

Then we did Jungle Cruise. Normally, I am not a big fan of JC, but we had a great pilot and laughed a lot.  Katriel was excited to see hippos and elephants. 

Next, we made all Johanna’s dreams come true.  We finally went on “the spitting camel ride.”  Since we had been talking about WDW, Hanny had remembered the ride from photos of her on it in 2011.  She was aghast yesterday when we left without riding it.  I kept explaining we’d go on it Friday.
Now all was right in the world. 
We rode it twice.

A bunch went up in Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.  Nan, Katriel and I did not.  We sought shade.  I was going to get a Dole whip, but I couldn’t figure out which one I wanted and then just passed.

John and Katriel walked back through the park to Storybook Circus, while the rest of went on the train from Frontierland to Storybook Circus.

 
Marie and Johanna went with Kelly to ride Under the Sea, which Kelly had missed Thursday.  The rest of us met Donald and Goofy.  Tab was able to get Donald’s autograph and Stewart got a selfie.

John and the kids did Stitch’s Great Escape with Kelly and then we headed back to Frontierland.  The park was definitely busier than it had been all week and seemed to be as busy as I’d ever personally had to deal with.  I don’t know how folks deal with 4th of July and Christmas crowds. 
We used the first of our BTMRR FP+.

Johanna loved it.  She is a coaster fan, big time.

Then we hurried back to the Hub for the Move It, Shake It Celebration.  We really only wanted to see Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde.

Then we headed back to see ride Splash Mountain.  Katriel wasn’t big enough so we grabbed a Rider Swap pass.  Then I didn’t want to take the time to do it as our Peter Pan FP+ window was open. 
We did Peter Pan and then checked out the Rapunzel bathrooms, and took in the Hall of Presidents.

And decided on another junk lunch of ice cream.
We went over to Tom Sawyer island and spent a good deal of time there.  They had a Memory Maker photographer over there who took a lot of nice images for us.  I took some, too.

It was getting close to dinner time, so we headed to the bathrooms so I could get the girls Princessed-Up for dinner.
We’d happened upon a photo area yesterday when Marie was in her Merida gown near the BBBoutique where they took photos of her.  So we stopped back in and asked them to take photos of all the girls. 

We checked in for our dinner and waited to be announced.

The service was meh, the portions were small, and the princesses were rushed.  But it was so fabulous.  I wish it weren’t so crazy-expensive.  I just kept thinking: “We are IN the castle!”
Dessert was the prettiest part.
Beer cheese soup and cheese sampler

Grapes and cheese for little ones   Castle salad

Nigel had the pork belly confit and Katriel played with her appetizer

Pan-seared chicken

Beef and Shrimp

Chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes and corn

Gus and Jaq’s favorites

Childen’s smore

The Clock Strikes Twelve.  Now THIS was super yummy.

It was getting to be MSEP time, so we stayed outside the parade route.  We went back to BTMRR and Splash Mountain.  We took a ride on the Carrousel and drifted back to Gaston’s Tavern just to look around. 


We stopped at the Tea Cups for a ride there and then moved to leave the park via Main Street shops while Celebrate the Magic was running. 

We shopped just until the fireworks started and then decided to get out of MK before the masses exited.  We saw snatches of the fireworks on the way out of the parks.  We weren’t even dragging out.

And to be completely transparent, I started to cry as we walked up the monorail ramp.  Not sad because we were leaving – THRILLED that I felt so totally satisfied with what we had accomplished.  There were only tiny little bits that we had not been able to do through the week: Beauty and the Beast, Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, Liberty Belle Steamboat.  But we had overwhelmingly covered what we had hoped to do and see, and had re-rides on our favorites. 
All in all.

Most excellent trip.

 

With the other three parks and excellent touring experiences behind us we had high hopes as we headed into this day.  Magic Kingdom (MK) has the most attractions, by far.  Trying to fit everything we were interested in into two days was going to be tough, especially with predicted crowd levels of 5/10 on Thursday and 7/10 on Friday.  We’d only had 3/10 and 5/10 thus far.

I was up at 5 AM, and the rest of the family followed. 
We had our three FP+ reserved, as well as PPO ADR at Crystal Palace to have us near the castle for rope drop (RDRD).  I also hoped to hit both the afternoon parade, as well as the evening entertainment today, if we could.

We were in the car by 6:45 A.M. and parked by 7:20 A.M.

Three of the girls were in princess gear today.

We were happy to hear the monorails were ready and were excited to have a Zootopia themed train.  We rode the resort monorail to the third stop.

We were UNhappy to see a huge swell of people waiting to go through bag check and security.  Everyone had to go through both and even as early as we were it was a mess.  Thankfully, that was the worst part of our day.
The Plan for today was to knock off as much of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland as possible. 

Breakfast was at the Crystal Palace.  We had last eaten there in 2007 and had fond memories. 

It was another great experience.

No sooner did we finish our meal and head out of the restaurant did we see the THRONGS of people streaming toward the castle for RDRD.  I grabbed my 4 girls, and took off toward Merida.  My mom came with us, got temporarily separated from us, and found us again.  John, Kelly, and the boys headed toward 7DMT and did a handful of rides before we saw them again.

We were queued for Merida by 9 A.M. for her 9:15 A.M. Meet and Greet.  My mom stayed in line with the girls when I went to secure more FP+ on our borrowed Magic Bands.  I grabbed Dumbo, and Speedway FP+ for everyone for later. I also grabbed 5 for Cinderella and Rapunzel for later in the day for five of us so that we could hopefully eliminate that as a RDRD goal for Friday morning.
We were the second family to meet Merida.

We then deviated from my touring plan as the line to meet Rapunzel and Cinderella was super short.  I would ditch those FP+ and grab others for I do not remember what.

She’s my favorite princess.

John met us and Marie changed out of her princess dress.  The boys and Kelly did a few more rides as we knocked out the Carrousel, the Winnie the Pooh ride, Under the Sea, and headed toward Storybook Circus.

We rode Barnstormer as Kelly, Stewart and Nigel caught up with us.  We then enjoyed Dumbo, and met Daisy and Minnie.  Both were HIGHLY interactive. 

Although we’d already met Donald and Goofy elsewhere, our Donald Meet and Greet in AK was before Tabitha wanted to collect autographs.  The line was long on their side, so we opted not to do that now and try again later. 

Lines me no likey.

We headed over for our FP+ of 7 Dwarves Mine Train (7DMT).  Despite reading many people saying it wasn’t worth the build up, we sincerely enjoyed it.  Maybe that was because it was a ride that worked for all of us, and the visuals really were pretty.  Our train car got stalled right in front of the dwarves’ cottage so we had a lot of time to inspect it. 

It was just a bit early for our Be Our Guest lunch.  This is a strange restaurant.  It is fast food for lunch and dinner, but it accepts/requires reservations.  You are encouraged to pre-order your meal, and when you arrive you find your own table and they trace your beacon (rose) to your seat and serve you your food. 
It is exceptionally expensive for what it is.  Thankfully, it does have free soda refills… because when you drop a couple of hundred dollars on lunch it is nice to have extra Coke.  (Note** we did not pay for these meals with real money!)

I was pretty unimpressed with this experience.  I’m not sorry we did it, but I wouldn’t do it again.  It was sort of pretty inside, and the food was pretty good, but I didn’t think it was worth the hype. 
We did try the grey stuff.
(It was delicious.)

We saw Gaston as we left.  We never got to meet him.

We headed over to Enchanted Tales with Belle.  This was one of our longest waits of the trip at about 20 minutes.


The little girls got to be a plate and a salt shaker.

We headed to the Hub in front of the castle and found spots for the 3:00 Festival of Fantasy parade. This was new since our trip in 2011 and we all enjoyed it.  I spent $18 on a mister.  Best.  Idea. Ever. 

We headed over to Tomorrowland and did Monster’s Laugh Floor where Johanna and Daddy were the two-headed guy.  Some did Space Mountain (I know, I know, I should have), and we all went onto Tomorrowland Transit Authority, Carousel of Progress, and Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin.    




Then it was time.
Time to meet Anna and Elsa.  Otherwise known as the reason I booked a throwaway campsite.  The reason I got up at midnight 60 days before our trip.

It was over in 6 minutes. 

Anna was great.  Elsa was icy.  No.  Really.
Six minutes. 
BUT – LADIES AND GENTLEMEN… THIS MEET AND GREET EXPERIENCE MARKED A PRINCESS GRAND SLAM!!!!!!!!

yeah.  I think I was more excited than the girls. 
We went and watched Philharmagic, and rode It’s a Small World with FP+ I’d picked up on my phone.  I think I only cut the wait fro 10 minutes to 2 minutes, but they were my 8 minutes…

It was up in the air if we should eat at Columbia Harbour House, a long time favorite; or Pinocchio’s Village Haus, somewhere we’d never eaten before.  We went for Pinocchio’s.  Stewart was really interested in pasta.  My meal looked so good, but was not at all what I was expecting.  It was fun to eat somewhere new, and it wasn’t crowded, either.  Our family has long since LOVED Figaro, so it was sweet to sit amongst wall paintings of him, as well.

We also checked out the upper balcony overlooking Fantasyland to say that we did.

It was time for our Speedway FP+.  Tabitha and Kelly got two rides on it as Tab hadn’t lined her car up right as she went to park, so they had them drive through again.

Some went on to Astroorbiter as John, Nan, Katriel and I watched a bit of the Incredibles Dance Party. 

It was then past time to find seats for the parade and night time entertainment.  Kelly and the older four kids went to do Stitch’s Great Escape, the the other five of us went back to the hub.  No sooner did I get to the Hub did I realize we would not be able to adequately reserve those seats alone, so I texted them to abort their mission and head over to the Hub.  As it was, some guy showed up moments before the evening parade and got in Nan’s way.  She spoke up and went so far as to call over a CM.  The CM moved the dude.
We watched the Main Street Electrical Parade

Celebrate the Magic

And Wishes fireworks.
We were moved out of the hub via the alternative exit (behind Main Street shops).
We made it out to the car smoothly and got home right around midnight.  We had another early day ahead of us, and we all fell exhausted into bed.

 

We’d been looking forward to this day for years.  And I’d had it pegged for over a week as a day I would not have to be up at 5AM.  It couldn’t have come a moment too soon.
I still got up at 6AM and let everyone sleep as long as they could.   That didn’t end up being much later than 8 for most.  We had no rope drop to contend for and enjoyed a slow paced breakfast.
Nan and Kelly decided to take a day off touring and lounged by the pool and snoozed.  We headed to Gatorland a little before 10 AM and got there about 30 minutes later.  I don’t feel like I need to mention our touring plan piece by piece as this isn’t the kind of park you need a touring plan.  Just plan on spending at least half a day and you can see all the shows and attractions. 
Just before we arrived we encountered a man with a sign looking for cash.  As he approached our scripture-covered van we talked a moment and exchanged his name hand shake for a few dollars.  We’ve been praying for Tony ever since.  It was hot.  Gloriously hot or oppressively hot depending on who you asked.  John and the kids had a 1PM reservation for zip-lining, so we were able to see most of the shows before they did their thing. 
We had realized as we arrived that we had left the daily park bag (formerly known as diaper bag) at the rental, so I did not have my camera.  We were limited to cell phone cameras.  We did get some pretty great shots, just the same.

 

https://youtu.be/BW2xFkcwYrc

It was crazy hot as we watched them suit up.  The little girls knew we had a splash park for them to look forward to, and they were none too laid back waiting.  I wanted to watch my crew get started on their zip line experience that was estimated to take 60 – 90 minutes to complete.  I did what any experienced parent does to mitigate any mulling meltdowns; I bought them chips.  As they chomped on their Cheetos Lays (I said EXPERIENCED parent; I wasn’t up for any hot orange kids) and watched birds I watched my other babies march out to the starting tower where they would begin their adventure where they would dangle their precious selves over hungry alligators. 

Really.
After I saw each of my kids and John go from the first tower to the second tower I took the little girls to the splash pads.
 
When I had grown tired of watching everyone else have fun become too hot to think straight, I helped the girls into the stroller and headed out to the van with them in search of our packed lunch.  We quickly ate our sandwiches in the 91 degree parking lot and coincidently watched the family on their last launch  and then headed back in to meet them.  Everyone was hot, tired, exhilarated and done.  We wholeheartedly recommend Gatorland.  Watching the dude wrestle the gator and watching the gator jumping show are some of the most fun in Florida.  Good old hokey fun.  I will try to upload videos later.  I need internet access to do that. 
The entry price is low, and there is a good deal of nickel and diming going on.  But it really is just nickel and diming.  No $99 cupcake cruise packages to consider.  Do you want three sticks of birdseed for $5 or not?  (You do!)  It didn’t add up too much.
The zip lining does cost about $30-40 pp, if I remember correctly.  I purchased those passes months ago from Undercover Tourist.  We DID opt to pay for the photo DVD (which is where I got those awesome zip line shots) which was $12 pp.  But honestly, we didn’t even blink when the offered that upsell.  We just saw the first two images and knew the shots were ones we wanted to take home with us.  Photos from the ground don’t do the thrill justice. 
We headed back to the van where we found our day bag and camera.  Oy….  And proceeded home for swimming and a dinner of pulled pork sandwiches.

I think most were in bed by 9ish as we have two very late nights coming up.