Head Over Heels: Cruise

Sunday, March 5, 2023

Cruise - First Day

As we were driving to Long Beach it started to rain. We weren't expecting rain from looking at the forecast. Brandon had to go park the car at an offsite parking place so we waited for him. The kids were in awe at how big the boat was.

Checking in.

Kallie said her stomach was full of butterflies.

The pool was covered with a retractable roof. They actually ended up leaving this one pool covered pretty much the entire cruise even though it never rained after that first day.

We went straight to the food and ice cream. I was so worried about bringing flip flops and swimsuits in a backpack to have access to them before we could get to our luggage but we definitely didn't end up needing those. It was pretty chilly!

Kids played a really quick game of mini golf and we actually never ended up playing it again.

Jackson got so much attention from the cruise ship employees. This guy just walked up to him and handed him this origami dragon. Jackson loved that thing and played with it for the rest of the cruise.

Of course we ended up swimming and hot tubing, even in the cold weather. The pool was as cold as ice. It was a true polar plunge getting in there. Which of course we all did at least once.

Hot tub felt much better!

When we started taking off we saw the boat that comes and picks up the pilot. Brandon told us how there is a special pilot that works in each port and gets the boat out of port, and then he gets picked up and just walks off the cruise ship to this pilot boat. We watched the whole thing and it was pretty cool.

We got to see a couple of dolphins in the wake as we took off. That's all I wanted was to see a dolphin and I got to see one the first day!

Kids loved the bunk beds that our housekeeper set up.

Having rooms with balconies was absolutely amazing. Totally worth it. Even though it was pretty much always cold out there. On a cruise with better weather, they would be even more amazing.