Our highly anticipated vacation finally came and we had a wonderful time.  We now have lots of fond memories and 400+ pictures to remember it by.   Here are the highlights (photos).

Day 0 – Driving

We started our drive down to southern CA a bit later than planned.  Michelle and Ted were already on the road, and they were around 20-30 minutes ahead of us.  The drive was uneventful, and we stopped once for lunch.  Both families arrived at our own destinations in good time (5+ hours of driving).  For us, we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hanging out with grandparents.  Logan was looking forward in seeing them, and so he was very excited to start playing with grandma as soon as we arrived.  Connor was shy as usual, but did enjoy receiving lots of attention.  They had a great time playing with all the toys grandma had prepared for them.

Day 1 – Boarding

The next morning, our plan was to hang out with the grandparents, have lunch and take a nap before boarding the ship.  The plan went well.  We drove to the port at 2:30pm, and the boarding went smoothly.  We found our room and met up with the Kaos who had already settled in in the room next to us.  Marcus was taking a nap, and so Mckayla came to our room to play with us.  All the kids were so excited to start this vacation that they were giggling with each other.   After a quick safety drill at 4pm, we went up to the deck for a welcoming party.  We then stopped by to check out the Oceaneer Club (a kid club) which had some little climbing structures, a stage for group activities, some building blocks, hula hoops, a large pirate climbing stair/structure, and a computer room with games and a large coloring table.  Logan’s favorite was playing with the computer games while Connor just loved walking everywhere in the entire club.  The cruise started to sail and it was time (5:45pm) for dinner.  Every night, we were being assigned to one of the three dining halls for dinner to give us varieties of atmosphere and food.  Our first dinner was at the Parrot Cay where we met up with our other cruising companions, Cary, Aiden, Phil and Uno; they are friends with Michelle and Ted.  We ordered foods for the kids first, then ours, and shortly after, the servers started bringing us tons of food.  First, some appetizers for us, second, multiple plates of the entrees we ordered for the kids, and then finally the entrees for the adults.  There were plenty of foods to eat and they were delicious.   After dinner, of course, we had some yummy desserts, and the kids were also given special treat, the Mickey ice cream bars.  Logan was so happy to see the bar for the first night that he ate the whole thing with a big smile.  This marked the beginning of a week long feast.  After we were all stuffed, we decided to do some dancing in the lounge with live music while the kids were in their sugar highs.  Mckayla, Marcus and Aiden immediately started dancing.  Logan warmed up to it quickly too; Connor was excited and loved to walk into the middle of the dance floor as well.  Uno was a bit shy and decided to stay with his daddy instead.  We danced until the live singers ended the show.  The four of us decided to call it a night and returned to our room.  The room had a good layout; Connor had a crib to sleep in and Logan slept on a single pulled out bed with a railing.  Stuart and I had a queen size bed.  We all slept well after the first day of excitement on the cruise.

Day 2 – At Sea

After breakfast, we walked around to check out the amenities on the ship.  We found the sport facilities on the upper deck.  Stuart and I tried to play some ping pong while Logan played the foo ball by himself.  Connor was just happy walking around and watching us.  We then played some soccer briefly before deciding to go hang out at the pools.  Stuart and Logan went into the Mickey pool while Connor, being on diapers, was only allowed at the splash zone.  Connor watched the kids running and splashing but he did not want to touch the water himself.  He then lost interests after a little bit.  The weather was still cool, so Stuart and Logan did not stay long in the water either.  After drying up, Stuart wanted to show Logan the arcade and at that point, Connor appeared tired, so I took him back to the room for a nap.  We had a buffet lunch afterward.  We then went to watch the movie Cars 2, but since Connor’s attention span was short, he and I ended up taking a long walk in different part of the ship.  It was was Halloween that day, so after the family nap, we dressed up the kids in their costumes and followed everyone for trick n treat.  We only stopped by a couple of stations as Logan was still not very into this activity yet.  There were some very elaborate costumes and we saw a couple other sets of Luke Skywalker and Yoda too.  We had dinner at Triton that night.  Since day 1, Connor’s appetite had gone way down, he basically only wanted to eat fruits and few bites of bread, drink only minimal water and barely any milk.  It might have been the change in routine or as Michelle suggested that he might have been seasick.  So dinner was a bit frustrating trying to get Connor to eat.  Logan on the other hand was enjoying dinners, eating mostly fish and rice; however he wanted to be fed by Stuart rather than eating by himself like his friends Mckayla, Aiden and Uno.  After dinner, we went for another dancing event at Studio Sea to wrap up the evening.  A side note of the day was that Logan was uncooperative at times which was somewhat tiring for us to deal with.  Glad that the bad behavior lasted less than 48 hours.

Day 3 – At Sea

It was Mckayla’s birthday.  From the start of the day, she was so happy wearing a birthday pin and receiving birthday wishes.  We tried to go a clubhouse party after breakfast, but it did not turn out as exciting as we thought, so Stuart took Logan to see the movie “Peter Pan” while Connor and I went to hang out at the pools with the Kaos.  The weather was much warmer that day, therefore, it was a lot more pleasant hanging out on the deck.  Connor played at the splash zone with Marcus for a little bit; Connor was mostly touching the water while holding onto my leg, and watching Marcus having a great time splashing with water.  In the afternoon, we went to play at the clubhouse before it was time to get dressed up for the formal night.  We told Logan that we were dressing up for Mckayla’s birthday which he was willing to cooperate.  Everyone in our group looked so handsome and beautiful; the kids were just amazing.  Mckayla was in a pretty white dress while all the boys dressed in black and white, like a group of handsome waiters.  It was another good dinner at the Triton’s (Connor was still not eating much) and we sang a birthday song for Mckayla.  We went to watch our first theater show at 8:30pm, “The Golden Mickeys”.  It was a very good show of many popular Disney songs.  Logan loved it so much that he kept asking “More show?” after each closing of the curtains.  Connor also was mesmerized with all the singing and dancing.  He would clap whenever everyone clapped and he giggled a couple of times on his own.  He surely was playing attention as he pointed to his head to me to indicate the hats that Woody and Jessie were wearing.  They both sat contently for the entire 45 minutes of show.  It was a great night.

Day 4 – Puerta Vallarta

We had signed up for an excursion to a beach resort at Puerta Vallarta, so we all gathered at 9:45am after breakfast.  We embarked the ship and took a 20minutes bus ride to a beautiful hotel.  Our friends rode in an earlier bus, so we met up at the beach with them and settled down at the cabana that they saved for us.  It was a beautiful beach with many cabanas and lounge chairs.  We were so excited that we immediately got ready to go to the water.  The sand was very fine, and the water was nicely warm.  Uno, Aiden and Logan played with the sands by the water for a long time while Mckayla sat nicely at the cabana to have her hairs braided by one of the vendors.  Marcus and Connor were hanging with the mommies, and the daddies had a chance to go out to the water for a swim.  Everyone also enjoyed free drinks at the hotel.  Connor finally got tired and took a power nap on me while I relaxed under the cabana.  The kids slowly migrated to the beautiful pool which had 2 huge alligator water slides.  After Connor woke up, we all headed over to have a Mexican buffet lunch at the resort.  We returned to the pool for more swimming before wrapping up the 4 hour stay at this wonderful resort.  Most of us were able to keep the kids up during the bus ride so we could have a nice long nap at the ship.  After dinner at the Animator’s Palate, it was time for our 2nd theater show, The Toy Story Musical.  This show was one hour long.  Logan and Connor were fascinated by all the characters initially, but the music was not as catchy and there were quite a bit of solo singing.  So after 45 minutes, Connor became antsy that he and I ended up walking around outside the theater until Logan and Daddy finished the show.