Last year we were building our house and not keen about having Thanksgiving in our itsy bitsy apartment, so we bought last minute tickets and took a cruise with Royal Caribbean. 

Sounds fun, right?  Well . . .

*Warning: Rant Alert*

We stayed in one of the smaller cabins, deep in the bowels of the ship, and our kids were supposed to sleep in bunks over our heads.  But our three-year-old kept falling out.  Luckily I was underneath her, so I would break her fall.  After this happened a few times she crowded in with my hubby and me. 

Another problem was my motion sickness.  I had attempted to plan ahead, and had a patch prescribed when we first considered the trip several weeks before.  But, apparently there was some delay at the supplier, etc., etc., and it didn’t get in.  So I was nauseous the whole time.  Fun.

What else . . . it was freezing (colder than our home in NC would have been) so swimming and all other outdoor activities were out, which was especially a bummer since indoor activities consisted of gambling, drinking, and smoking, of which I do none. 

There were a few cool activites planned for evenings.  A swing dancing class, a chocolate buffet, a piano duel.  But the staff screwed up our babysitting reservations.  Grrr.

The Thanksgiving feast itself was okay, but not much of a feast.  They didn’t even offer pumpkin pie.  We were decidedly unimpressed with the food throughout our trip.

There were a few good points.  The kids really liked the kids activities, and loved staying in the kids club so much they would have happily played longer.  My only complaint there was that the first day we had to stand in line over an hour with all the parents waiting to register, even though we came in early and pre-registered our kids.  Very bad planning, that. 

There was also a pretty good music and dance number, which we all enjoyed, and we did get to see the dueling pianos the last night, which was just as good as hoped.

The islands were a big improvement.  Paradise Island was pretty good and the Royal Caribbean Castaway Cay, which we visited on our last day, was really nice.  Far and away our most enjoyable part of the trip.  There were sandy beaches for everyone to spread out on, trails for hiking, paddle boats and their ilk for playing in the water, hammocks to relax in . . . we had a lovely time.

So we learned from our trip.  Don’t leave home without a patch.  Reserve a nice cabin or don’t take the trip.  Go with a cruise line which caters to our taste, i.e., has more than just gambling.  Maybe just save our pennies and fly to the warm and sunny islands.

Today we’ll be at home, and as I list the things I’m thankful for, solid, un-moving land is up there on the list.