Stam Family Happenings: Day 2-Bon Voyage

Goodbye land!

Checking out the pier

It’s departure day! This cruising business is new to me and my family...except Daegon. He has had the opportunity before (twice) to cruise with his uncle and grandparents. Lucky duck! So we are pretty excited and a little anxious about this adventure. It’s pretty incredible that we have technology that simplifies our lives so much. We were telling our kids on the way down about the good ol’ days when we had to pull out the extremely large and bulky paper map to find our way. And we didn’t have a navigation app to show us the freeway in red when when the roads were super congested. So we are pretty fortunate to have iPhones and Siri to help us with our traffic challenges. Rob navigated the California roads like a boss and we arrived on time at the pier to check in for our cruise. It was touch and go for a little while but we successfully made it on the boat and enjoyed the launch of the Carnival Splendor from the balcony of our room. There is something about the ocean and the breeze that just soothes my soul! Jayden and I quietly sang the words from Moana as the ocean “called” us.😂 Ryker and Jayden loved watching the land disappear from the comfort of our balcony but Daegon and Trenton were way more adventurous on the upper levels of the ship.

DINNER
The buffet! Wow! Food for miles...well it feels like miles. So many people were eating and milling around when we boarded. We decided to wait a little bit to eat because we ate at a mall somewhere in California before heading to the boat. But I had my eye on the huge plates with burgers and fries I kept seeing everywhere so I had to go back for that after our muster drill.

Muster. I kept thinking people were saying “mussel” drill and I could only think of the critters people have to clean off their boats when they come back into Utah from Lake Mead. I couldn’t figure out why we would need a drill for that. Well...it had NOTHING to do with mussels and everything to do with what can go wrong on a large boat. 😱 It was informative but took forever to account for all of the passengers. Ryker cried through the whole thing but we got to leave the drill early because of him! Thanks Ryker!

Back to food... so once we were out of the harbor, we went back for the burgers and fries. They did NOT disappoint! Was it the best burger I’ve had? Meh...it was cooked quickly and mass produced but everything tastes better while on vacation, right?!? The pizza place was open too. Rob said it was pretty good! So three great options so far! At that point, Trenton and Dax joined us for “second dinner”.

We had time the rest of the evening to settle in and explore the ship. The kids have already explored the whole ship and found all the places. Probably even some they shouldn’t have been!! But they are great little navigators and are having a blast! This will be an amazing adventure!

Until next time....