Vacation 2011

Yes these are going to appear backwards, but it's easier to remember things in order.  A brief recap. 

On Thursday, December 1st, we loaded up the girls and drove to Chicago.  We had dinner with my parents and then stayed the night with them.  Bright and early on Friday we caught a flight to Ft. Lauderdale.  We landed before lunch, got our rental van and drove to the hotel.  That was an adventure in itself.  The GPS did not take us to the hotel.  It took us to the ghetto of Dania Beach Florida!!  I called the hotel and they gave us another address to plug in.  That one got us there.  The hotel was really nice, brand new.  The girls went swimming and we all went to bed early.  The next morning we ate breakfast then went to the cruise ship.  We had to wait about 2 hours but we were finally on the ship.  After lunch and a tour of the ship, we watched the sailaway from our balcony.  It was a bit rocky at sea that night.  The next day we were at Princess Cay, the private island in the Bahamas.  It was quite windy and a little chilly, but the girls enjoyed the ocean and playing in the sand.  Us adults enjoyed some sun, beer and relaxation.  The girls had a kids club on the island too, and after swimming, playing and lunch, they went to spend about an hour with the kids club.  That night John and I tried the ultimate balcony dining experience, but the seas had other ideas.  We couldn't set it up outside because it was way too windy.  Then the seas got the best of me and I ended up getting very very sick.  We had to reschedule the dining.  The next day was a day at sea, and I spent the day relaxing and recouping from my hectic night.  After that was Curacao.  That was a beautiful island, but it was HOT.  We walked around a bit, took pictures and then went back to the ship.  The girls stayed on the ship in the kids club.  It was too much walking in the hot sun for them.  The next day was Aruba.  We booked an excursion to De Palm Island.  We had a fabulous time.  We took the girls into the ocean.  There was a nice cove with calm warm waters.  There was also a good water park.  While the girls were there with Grandma Bonnie, John and grandma Kathy were in the cove, I went snorkling.  After I was done we met up with the girls in the water park and they discovered water slides.  Skylar loved them.  She couldn't get enough.  Larissa had fun on them too, but stuck to the smaller ones.  She did try the biggest one, but didn't really like it.  She liked the little yellow one and the smaller open ones. 

After Aruba we had 2 more days at sea and then came back home.  John and I did manage to do our ultimate balcony dining.  It was wonderful.  The girls enjoyed a lot of time in the kids club.  They begged and begged to go there.  We did take them swimming almost every day and ate all but 2 meals with them.  We took them to see Mr. Poppers Penguins at movies under the stars.  We tried to spend a lot of time with them, but they really wanted to go to the kids club a lot.  They did some cool crafts and the kids really liked it. 

I am going to do several blogs about the different events.  I have almost 600 pictures so I will pick the best.  Enjoy.  There will likely e a few pages of blog posts.