Cruising the Baltic's: The boat and days at Sea

The first few days of our vacation were jam packed with tons of walking.  We were all pretty excited to be able to get on our cruise ship and relax for a day and a half to recover.  The cruise line we used was Royal Caribbean and our boat was Brilliance of the Seas.  Everything on the boat was very nice and was a great place to spend some down time.  When we first boarded, we checked out our rooms and then we all pilled into Mom and Dad's room to hang out.

 Jacob loved playing on the bed in our room and since it was so low to the ground he was able to get off the bed by himself.  He also loved walking the hallways and saying "hi" to everyone we passed.

 As anyone would expect from a cruise ship, there were lots of extracurricular activities to enjoy.  We spent some time at the pool but since we were so far North it wasn't warm enough to swim very frequently.  There were several rounds of family putt putt, ladder golf, and bean bag toss.  Beau enjoyed playing basketball and the kids loved the arcade.  The adults even spent a little time in the adult arcade, aka The Casino.

The ship had a kids club that Beau and Bailey frequented and even Coleton loved going to the section for his age. After the first few nights of long formal dinners, Beau and Bailey decided to eat on their own in the buffet area so that they could get to hanging out as soon as possible.  Beau would stay at the kids club pretty late and enjoyed "bringing home the gold" in dodgeball.  They even had a nursery for Jacob (for an extra fee) and Micah and I would take Jake most nights so that he could have room to play and we could have some adult time. 

While the kids were off playing, the adults had to find something to entertain themselves.  Time was spent in the Spa and at classes, lounging by the pool and playing lots of cards.  I taught my family how to play Shanghai, a Saudi ladies favorite, and we played many rounds.  

Almost every night for dinner we would all eat together (minus Beau and Bailey) at the same table with the same waiters.  Our waiters were awesome! We loved them.  They would have our stuff out and ready the moment we sat down. For me, deciding where we are going to eat dinner every night is one of my most hated parts of vacation so having it all set up and ready to go every night was amazing.  Some nights were formal nights while others were casual.  It was fun to have a mix and to have an excuse to get dressed up. 

We had pretty smooth seas and no one ever got sea-sick or just sick in general!  Can't ask for much better than that. The boat was excellent and we all had a blast.