brookeq

So here are a bunch of our snorkel pictures.  This was the best snorkeling we have done.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter.   I will be back later to post our snorkel pictures and continue on with the review.  

1 hour ago, grandmarnnurse said:

Be strong, moms. I raised 5 children, all different temperament, but our 4th child was born hyper! I can laugh now, but it was a struggle. At age 3, they diagnosed her with ADHD, and she received special extra help through her preschool. She entered kindergarten at the right age, and never was held back. But years of struggle led to depression. Throughout her teen years, it wasn’t pretty. But as time went on, and she matured, and understood her issues more, she learned to cope. I’m not going to say she never was medicated, because that was not true, and now she is a successful adult at age 39, with dual degrees in Criminal Justice and Nursing, and an ICU/med/surg RN, with a family of her own. So, moms, the road may not be easy for you and your child, but you will all overcome and life will get easier and happier, as your child matures and can understand how to control and help their emotions. I wish you all the best of luck, and patience. ❤️

Thanks for the encouragement. I appreciate it.  

1 hour ago, splash_in_the_water said:

oh man....great review so far. I know the struggles of the kids. our's is 8 and has some similar behaviors as your's. it can be beyond understandable...once they go over the edge there's no reasoning, talking, dealing , etc...they're their own boss of their own little world. mine is the same food wise as well, gotta keep that blood sugar up. This is a constant thing on school mornings...he doesn't usually like to take time to eat at the school provided breakfast, or even lucnh sometimes, and it shows- though he's usually happy to eat a couple pop-tarts at home in the morning-that is if he manages his time well enough. Also, people see him freak out, or us  sometimes and i think  they're thinking "poor kid.....blah blah" and don't realize -no, this is real. this happens all the time. Our's is adhd with authority defiance disorder as well...some people think it's "just kids" but it's more than that.

 

anyhow, great review, looks like you're all having fun despite the bugbites, tantrums, family, etc! looking forward to the rest!

Thanks!   Its nice to hear that I am not alone.  The bad times stink but I try to focus on the good times.  We had some really bad moments on this cruise but a ton of good moments.  So I look at it as a good family vacation.  But during those tough moments don't ask me.  Ha ha

Happy Easter!  I will try to pick up where I left off tomorrow.

Wow.  

Two young kids took us out.  Poor kids didn’t know what they were getting into!  The boat ride was quick and they stopped and we got ready.  I got in first and it was amazing.  So much too see.  Mike put Amelia in and she was not having it.  She was crying and screaming and just could not calm down.  Hayden was getting ready but complaining.  The boys assured him there were no jelly fish.  Amelia was really freaking out now so I took her back.  Hayden took one look,  said this is dumb and got back on the boat.   Ugh.  Kids.  I knew it would be hard to get Hayden to go again after getting stung in Grand Cayman.  And then with the bad mood I knew there was little chance.  My husband was really trying to force them but I said forget it.  We spent the money so we have two choices.  We all go and be miserable and not get to see much.  Or me and you can go and the kids sit on the boat.  Either way some money is wasted but at least by ourselves we can see the reef.  I put the kids at opposite ends of the boat.  They both didn’t say a word.  One Honduran kid was in the water to show us around and one stayed on the boat.  Poor kid on the boat got a raw deal.  

So Mike and I went off to snorkel the 2^nd largest barrier reef.   It did not disappoint.

2 hours ago, Sunseeker20 said:

Hi! 

Really enjoying your review! Just wanted to say that as a fellow mom of 3 boys, I know the behavioural struggle! I know all those feelings you get when they are losing it in public and you want to crawl in a hole and hide! When I see moms in a situation like that when we are out in public, all I feel is compassion. It's hard but consistancy is key with discipline, and he will turn out to be a wonderful human, so dont worry!

Thanks.  We just keep doing our best.   The only good things was I kept thinking... I will never see these people again.  So don't stress. 

3 hours ago, grandmarnnurse said:

I totally understand how difficult it can be to book a family vacation. I tried a couple years ago, and ended up nearly pulling my hair out before we actually set sail. Fast forward to me planning our 50th Anniversary cruise for 2020. First up, everyone stating “you better plan it for Easter break, so kids don’t miss school”. Our anniversary is in March. Ok, so we move it to April. Now, most of the kids are telling us they aren’t sure they are even going to book. 😳 I give up. Hubby said, just go ahead and plan our vacation as planned, and if they want to come, they will come. Not to mention it ever again. We decided to add a week to make it a B2B. So, we are driving to Florida one week prior, renewing our vows, alone, in the little town we were married in, and boarding our ship (the Magic) for two glorious weeks. Not going to worry about whether anyone is going to join us. I’m not changing my plans one more time to suit people, only to have them back out. This is my Anniversary. 

As for your impatient MIL, I had to laugh. I’m an extremely punctional person, and have no patience for tardy people. But Ive never left someone in the bathroom—LOL! Good thing you don’t have to deal with her often. 👍

enjoying your review, as this is the ship I booked for that Anniversary cruise. 

Oh I hate late people too.  I am always early.  MIL is usually the one who is late, so that makes it more annoying that she wouldn't wait 5 minutes.   Ha ha.  

I will never be in charge of family vacations  (I was last cruise).  Every year we book our vacation and invite people to join us.  If they do great!  If not we still have a great time.   Your anniversary trip sounds great!

While this was going on Amelia took her money from her Grandfather and went to get her hair braided. The lady was on top of us when we were getting our bracelets giving Amelia the book to look at.  I knew we wouldn’t get out of there without getting her hair done.  She was happy with how it turned out.  I don’t know if we overpaid or not.  I don’t stress about these things.  I hate haggling and figure the people need the money. 

At some point my son finally started eating.  Apparently there was food in the bag that he could eat.  😉  And then he was a little better  

My husband was ready to snorkel but we realized that we were pretty far away from the snorkel area.  The kids would never walk that far.  Brian would watch our stuff but I am not having him watch my kids.   And we really didn’t have a ton of time to waste walking that far.  There was a guy offering snorkeling tours that take you out to the reef by boat.  Today was turning out to be an expensive day! We quickly talked about it and just said lets do it.  We packed our snorkel stuff and got on the boat.   You can see the small boat behind us.  

I didn’t take many pictures since as I said we didn’t have a lot of time.  There was a big pool and lots of loungers and restaurant.  It would have been a great place to hang out all day. 

So it was already a little stressful.  Then things got worse.  My son literally went from happy to miserable.  He didn’t want to go to the beach and he was letting us know it.  He can be relentless.  Ignoring doesn’t ever make him stop.  So he was in our ear really complaining.  We went to get our wrist bands and he wanted his on tight.  So we told the lady.  She put it on pretty tight.  Apparently he didn’t think it was tight enough (he literally wanted it cutting his circulation off).  When we were back at the loungers getting sun block he threw a fit.  And ripped it off.  Sigh.  I try not to engage but it was crowded so he was making a scene and everyone around us could see.  I will just say that this was not one of our finest moments.

We made him go and ask for a new wristband and told him to ask if he could put it on himself.  That took 10 minutes to get him to do that.  When he did he snatched it from the lady.  Oh no you didn’t!  We didn’t want to make a bigger scene but we would not be letting him use the arcade that night like we talked about.  (we didn’t’ tell him this at the time I needed him to deescalate) and we took away some other things as punishment.   And later when he calmed down he had to go apologize to the lady.

Then he started with “I am starving”.  I had a back pack full of food.  All with things he picked out himself so we wouldn’t’ have any problems on this trip.  He refused to eat any of it.  Then started screaming that he hates us and how we wont’ feed him, etc.  Awesome.

21 minutes ago, ctsharpie05 said:

What a great review! We are sailing in July and cannot wait! I have never sailed with Carnival. You mentioned tickets for the tender..is this required at all times or just if you want to get off the ship early? Also, can you get them the night before instead of the morning of? Royal (Empress) did not require these so I am unfamiliar with this process. 

You can not get them the night before.  Only the day of.   You may not need them later in the day.  But if you are getting off early you need one.  

Our next thing we wanted to do was head to West Bay beach.  We really wanted to snorkel here since we didn’t get to last time.  The kids were a bit tired so I knew it would be a bit of fight but this was something my husband I both wanted to do and who knows if we will be back (esp since most itineraries with roatan as a stop are the same cruise we are doing/already done:  Belize, Roatan, Cozumel and then Costa Maya or Grand Cayman). 

So we did the approximately ½ hour drive to the West Bay Beach area.  The plan was to go to Bananarama for $10 a person and head to the snorkel area on our own.  We got there and they were full.  We tried the two places next to Bananarama and they were also full.  Brian was awesome and made some calls and tried a few more places .  He eventually found some openings at a place called Henry Morgan.  It was I think $20 or $25 a person so we had to make sure we had enough money and quickly decide if we wanted to pay that much since we didn’t have a ton of time.  We decided just to go for it. 

Thanks for the nice comments and for following along everyone.  

For the next part of our tour we were going to a church to donate school supplies to local children.  We communicated with Rony ahead of time and he gave us a list of things that were needed:  White shirts to wear under uniforms, pencils, markers, colored pencils, etc.  We picked up supplies for ten kids.  We added some fun erasers and other little things.   I work for a company called Soccer Shots.   We teach soccer to little kids ages 2-8.  At the end of each season they get prizes.  I contacted my boss to see if he had any fun soccer stuff he could donate.  He took me to our prize closet to pick things out.  They had some left over insulated soccer ball lunch boxes.  So we put all of the supplies in those. And each kid got a mini soccer ball. 

We stopped at a church and the kids were sitting there quietly waiting.  They were so cute and well behaved.  They were very happy to get their items. I didn’t ask to take a picture because I  wasn’t sure how people feel about that.  But the lady said lets get a picture and Brian happily took one.  They used it for their site and said it was ok to share.  

47 minutes ago, blarko said:

Did you ever figure what caused the spots on your legs?

No.   I saw a bunch of ants near our stuff at Grand Cayman when we were leaving.  But I am the only person out of 18+ people to get any type of bites.  

35 minutes ago, rukkian said:

We have an 8 day on Magic out of Fort Lauderdale in March.  4 ports in 8 days, as it has to go a long ways from Florida to Aruba.

I think that would be a good choice.  

The guide took the the kids to the rabbits thinking my daughter may like them.  She went in but didn’t hold it.  My son did.  It was pregnant so had to be careful. 

They have small “museum” with some paintings and a few things where tell you about their people. 

My son got to hold a bird before we left.  So he was happy.

It kind of matched his shirt 🙂

Overall I would definitely recommend Manawakie Eco Park.  It was a relaxing way to see the animals.  No waiting in lines in the heat.  And we were not rushed at all.   It is closer to the Carnival port than the other sloth/monkey places. 

The next part of the tour was to see the monkeys.  I knew ahead of time that neither of my kids wanted to do this part.  Monkeys are just way too wild for them.  So it was just me and my husband.  You had to empty everything from your pockets.  Nothing on your head. Etc. 

The monkeys run around like crazy and will just jump on you.  They seemed to like my husband more.  They climbed on him.

They went down his pants!

The guide brought the monkeys to me. 

One went down my shirt. 

And one just chilled up above us.

After the sloths the guides took us around and showed us their plants.  He would tell us all of the things they used them for.  It was interesting.  The kids didn’t think so ha ha.

I want to do a southern Caribbean cruise.   But does the magic leave from puerto rico?  Those are very port intensive and may not be the best choice for first time cruisers.  Or is this one of the florida departures?

16 minutes ago, richbum said:

3 and 8

No really.  I would say maybe some pre-teens or teenagers.  3 is definitely too young.

On 4/15/2019 at 9:52 PM, richbum said:

Would this excursion be good for kids?

What age are the kids?

One of the main things we wanted to do was see the sloths.  Someone on here posted a review that Rony took them to a new place to see the sloths.  Since its new it wasn’t crowded at all.  I did some research and decided this was the place I wanted to go.   It was called Manawkie Eco Park.  Brian took us in and helped gets us paid up.  Then he stayed in the car and waited for us. 

There was one other family of 3 there so it was a small group.  Our guide was very nice.   I don’t remember his name.  He took us straight to the sloths.  They brought out the sloth and told us a lot of facts about them that I didn’t know.  They are interesting animals. 

My son got to hold the sloth first. 

My husband was next.

My daughter was all decked out in her sloth shirt but got really upset and didn’t want to hold one.  Poor thing.  She really does have a fear of most animals.  Before the cruise she said she wanted to try.   She gets sad because she wants to do it but then is just way too scared. 

We skipped her and it was my turn.  It really wanted my sunglasses.   So it moved a lot more that I thought it would when I was holding it.

We gave Amelia another shot just asking her to pet it.  It didn’t go over well. 

So our family shot also didn’t turn out.  Ha ha

We were not rushed at all.  In fact they gave us each more time again if we wanted.  So some of us held the sloths again.  

Brian took us to a small shopping center with a nice view.  The view was more of where the other ships dock but still a nice view. 

We stopped into the small store and got some cold drinks and some aloe spray for my sons sunburn.  Brian helped us with the amount of money it would cost.