Bahamas, baby!

 

We went to the Bahamas for our family vacation this year and it was fabulous!

We sailed on Margaritaville at Sea for a 2 night cruise to the Bahamas...yes, the very same one we went on for our honeymoon. It's a smaller and older ship but it had plenty for us. I found another one of those great sales with a buy one, get one and the 3rd and 4th passengers sail for free so we decided to take the kids and make it a real family vacation.

Chris suggested we invite my sister and her family along to join us which was an amazing idea. The best part of the cruise was having her along to make memories with.

Her grandkids had been with her all summer so this was our final summer moment before school started for everybody. The kids were all excited about taking a cruise (and having cousins to play with) but they weren't quite prepared for the fact that sometimes on a ship you have to wait for things like your luggage arriving in the cabin and you have to attend the muster drill even if it's boring.

And so began the 11 year old's descent into pre-teenagerhood. She moped, she drooped, she had an earache that only plagued her when she was bored or hungry but never when there was a swimming pool around...conveniently for her. On our honeymoon cruise we saw every show the ship offered but on this cruise we saw no shows because mopey needed to go back to the cabin each evening right after dinner because she didn't feel good. I was not amused.

Luckily for all of us, she felt peachy keen in the morning we docked in the Bahamas and headed off for our excursion day at a beach resort. There was a lazy river and that's her favorite thing in the world so she wasn't going to miss that. My favorite thing is the beach and I actually went there by myself for most of the morning and it was glorious. Everybody eventually joined me and the 11 year old and I had a marvelous time jumping waves and splashing around and she was feeling just fine.

The resort was gorgeous, everything I wanted the Bahamas to be and it was a wonderful day.

We got back to the ship and we were hungry so we went to the buffet only to find that it wasn't going to open for another hour. We figured it wasn't worth it to go back to the cabin so we sat right at a table, got some drinks and waited.

I guess waiting is too much for an 11 year old and she started to droop once again and then her face was all scrunched up in pain as she looked at us and asked why we had to wait as if we could just snap our fingers and make it all better for her.

The little scrunchy face might have gotten to me if she hadn't just been bragging to her cousin that it was a face she practiced in the mirror to elicit sympathy and get out of doing chores around the house.

Yeah, like that's ever going to work again.

Unfortunately she got herself so worked up that once again we had to leave as soon as we'd eaten and spent the rest of the evening in the cabin because she didn't feel up to doing anything and she's too young to leave by herself. So no shows or dancing or casino for us. I was not happy and have vowed never to take kids on a cruise again. I am glad I have such perfect memories of our honeymoon cruise and had an almost perfect day at the beach this time.

Happier moments from the cruise before we were hit by Hurricane Pre-teen.

All in all, it was a lovely vacation and getting to spend it with my sister made it perfect for me.