The seas were noticeably calmer overnight and I think we all slept better. I was feeling normal again and we awoke to see clam seas and a sunrise through our window.
The kids were eager to get to the kids club and we ate an early breakfast in the sit down restaurant again. We again got in line at Splash Academy before it opened.
Morning
The plan for the day was to put the kids in Splash Academy for a few hours in the morning and check them out for an early lunch. For our excursion we needed to meet at 12:40 to begin the tour to Kennedy Space Center after the ship docked around 1:00pm. We didn’t tell the kids anything other than that we were going on an excursion… and struggling to define the word excursion.
My wife and I both went to the gym to get in a workout. It was full but people cycled through the machines pretty quickly due to the number of machines. We each did a quick 30 minute workout. The ocean views were fantastic in the daylight!
After the gym we wandered around the ship biding our time until we would get the kids. We made our way to the restaurant reservations desk to determine where to book our remaining two credits. The menus for each restaurant were available and we confirmed that the kids could order off the kids menu for free. We booked the Italian restaurant for the next night, Christmas Eve, and the Brazilian steakhouse for the day after Christmas.
As we were walking around, the captain made his daily morning announcement about weather, position and sea conditions. He also broke the news that we would be late into port due to the rough seas and high winds we encountered the previous day on the way from NYC. We would be arriving 2 hours late and the new departure time would be 30 minutes later than scheduled. It’s wasn’t going to be a very long stay in port.
The cruise director then came on and announced that our excursion was one of the ones that was canceled due to the delay. That was disappointing, though at least they confirmed we would get refunded. If we had booked a similar excursion through Travelocity it’s unclear whether we would have been refunded in this scenario. This was the excursion that we were both the most excited about. We now had an afternoon to fill up with activities with the kids.
Afternoon
We got the kids from Splash Academy just before noon and broke the news that our excursion had been canceled over lunch. We debated whether to get off the ship and go shopping at one of the shopping areas referenced in the port information flyer provided by the cruise line but none of us were all that interested in shopping for tourist trinkets. We have malls at home.
We ended up staying on board and using the pool since the weather was around 70 and finally warm enough for the kids to enjoy some pool time. While the actual kids pool was closed for maintanence, the splash park was open. It is geared towards slightly younger kids but the boys saw some other kids from Splash Academy and had some great fun. They then moved on to trying the various waterslides and spent two solid hours wearing themselves out playing with gravity.
They spent most of their time going on a tube slide that was enclosed but had a clear section that was high over the side of the ship so I’m sure it was quite a thrill. There was a regular slide that I heard many kids complain about being too slow. There were two other slides called the Aqualoop that were ones where you stand at the top and the floor drops out from under you. The slide when nearly straight down. The kids weren’t brave enough to try that yet, but everyone who went on it came out with a shocked/surprised/happy look on their face.
While the ship seems large and crowded at times, it was nice to see the kids find friends they had made in Splash Academy in different settings. As the week wore on we recognized more and more people and I imagine on longer cruises or smaller ships people become even more familiar.
From our room we also had a fantastic view of the behind the scenes logistics of the ship. Right under our window we could watch pallet after pallet of supplies being loaded into the ship. It’s amazing in particular how much beer was being loaded, though that probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. Further down the ship we could see the tankers refueling the ship as well. This went on nonstop from when we docked until just before the ship left port.
Evening
We finally managed to drag the kids away from the water slides and got ready for dinner. We went to the Manhattan Room again and this was quickly becoming our favorite dinner venue. It’s a large room with a live band playing music. It’s a room we found to be sophisticated in a way that others lacked. While the menu is nearly identical to the other sit down restaurants the ambiance made the difference for us. Everyone liked their food except for me. My order had gotten mixed up. Instead of sending it back, we ended up getting dessert so we could get to our show reservation on time.
We made it just in time to our comedy show with stand up comedian Phil Palisoul. He was funny and the kids loved the show. They were just old enough to get most of the jokes. The later comedy shows are 18+ but the one we attended was family friendly. It was held in the same Headliners Comedy Club venue as the Howling at the Moon dueling pianos show we saw on our first night.
After the show we split up. My wife took Tomatico up to play on the basketball court while I took our youngest to the buffet. I was still hungry after the mixed up order at dinner. Being relatively late, the buffet was much more manageable and I definitely ate enough to fill up. Interestingly, I saw the comedian at the buffet, proving again that the ship isn’t as big as we may have thought it was.
We then met up back in the room and called it a night. We reflected that the ship was much more manageable when so many people had left for excursions. Things weren’t nearly as crowded and everything was much easier to get to. As we got closer to departure time and people came back on board things started feeling crowded again. That’s of course to be expected, but we had certainly enjoyed having the ship more to ourselves for a few hours.
Next up was our beach day at our second port, Great Stirrup Cay.
Tomatico Travels 
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