All posts by Andi

Bloggings, Snorkeling, Travel

blue lagoon bahamas

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Lucas woke up at 545 to pee and never went back to bed. Our lockbox stopped working and maintenance fixed it in like 15 minutes. Disney is on it! We had breakfast at Marceline Market. The Eggs Benedict were on point. I think breakfast is my favorite meal on the ship.

After breakfast we went to the Oceaneers Club to let Lucas look around. It was pretty cool. There was a Star Wars themed room and Chewbacca was there. Lucas was afraid and wanted nothing to do with Chewbacca.

We spent some time in a Hero themed room and I heard talk of Spiderman showing up, so we got in line. The line was pretty long and we had to be ready for our excursion to Blue Lagoon at 9:15 so I was little nervous.  With 5 minutes to spare to get there Lucas saw Spidey and loved it. He got to hug spiderman. Lucas was wearing Cars swim trunks so Spidey asked if he liked Cars and Lucas kept messing with his trunks and showing his legs. Spidey asked if he had fast legs. Then they posed shooting webs together. It was a really great experience, we were at the right place at the right time!

We made it to our meeting place for the Blue Lagoon on time, people were later than us. Then we got on boat to the Blue Lagoon. Once we got there, we really didn’t know what to do or which beach was best. We chose an umbrella closer to the restaurant. There were inflatable things kids could climb and jump on, but we decided to snorkel first. Lucas was really excited to use his fins. He was a little scared though. He does a great job with the snorkel, but the fins will take some time.  So we put on water shoes and tried to snorkel again. We saw some fish and a crab. Lucas wanted to stop snorkeling. He told me people were laughing at him. That made me feel sad that he felt that way. No one was laughing at him, and he was the only badass 3 year old out there snorkeling in the ocean!

We decided to try the inflatable area so we all got life jackets. It was not easy! I don’t know how people were getting on this thing because you had to pull yourself up without being in water that was shallow. Don had to hoist me up. It was fun at first but when we went to a different part and a girl helped pull Lucas up but neither of us could get up. Then he ended up falling in and a woman got him out. He didn’t want to get off of this thing but then a dark cloud was coming in and a huge lightning came down behind him, so I told him we had to get out and he jumped to me. It was a little scary.  

It got windy and rainy, so we got some food. The weather didn’t look great after, so we decided to take the 1 pm boat back. Lucas slept about 20 minutes in his stroller, but the boat was like a party boat, and he got woken up. He was tired and would tiredly clap his hands whenever other people did it was so cute. The rain got pretty bad on the boat. It was crazy to see the clouds and lightning. When we got off it let up, so we went to a gift shop. Lucas picked up a little gift for our neighbor Barb.

The walk back to the ship was crazy! The wind was so strong if I let go of Lucas’s stroller it would keep going on its own! We got cleaned up when we got back to our room and the captain announced for everyone to stay inside due to the winds and the storm. During this time Lucas played store. Don got him a little coin pouch at the gift shop. He lines up his toys and tells us which we can buy and how much. It’s really cute.

We went to Hyperspace Lounge and got drinks. It was pretty cool. Our drinks came with smoke bubbles and Lucas was a little afraid of that, but it was fun. Then we went to the toddler section in the Oceaneer Club. Lucas played with things there for a bit but then it closed. We saw Mickey, Donald Duck, and Goofy but all their lines were long. We tried to watch the new Guardian of the Galaxy movie to pass some time but the theater was full. So we went into a different theater that was playing a new Disney movie, I think it was called Element. We made it through the previews and a short Up movie but then it was time to go to dinner.

Our dinner was at Arrendelle, a Frozen themed restaurant. Lucas got a picture with Elsa. The food was ok here. I got a ribeye. Don had the sirloin steak which was much better. Lucas had a corn dog with mac and cheese. The dessert was really good. I had a mint chocolate chip sundae. Don had an apple dessert and Lucas had a smores dessert.

We went up to the deck and saw the Mickey Pirate show. Lucas was afraid of Captain Hook. There was a dance party after the show and Lucas had fun dancing. He wore is Woody pajamas tonight so it was funny. Many people were dressed up as pirates, but our son was a cowboy.

Once we got back to the room Lucas fell asleep around 9:30. Then we went to the balcony and watched lightning and the fireworks show.

Bloggings, Travel, Uncategorized

we are going on the big ship!

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We woke up today again around 6:30; Lucas doesn’t allow sleeping in even on vacation! We got our bags all situated for the cruise and we noticed a Royal Caribbean ship outside our hotel room!  At breakfast in the hotel Lucas got chocolate milk to go in a coffee cup and kept saying it was his coffee. That was pretty cute, although I felt the older lady at the hotel front desk was judging me. Maybe she thought it was really coffee.

I planned for us to go to Romelia Farm and Petting Zoo before we had to embark on the cruise. On the drive there we saw the Disney Wish and Lucas said, “that’s our ship it has a mickey mouse on it!” It was an exciting and cute moment. We have been talking about “the big ship” for so long!

At Romelia’s Farm we did a tour on a tractor with 3 other people. The tour was nice and informative. Lucas was afraid of most of the animals, but he did feed some goats. We bought feed for the horses also, so at the end of the tour we did that. It was a little intimidating to feed horses, they are big and have pretty big teeth. Lucas just held onto my arm to help feed the horses. Before we left we got ice cream. Then we drove back to town and got some lunch at Subway. We had some time to spare so Don found a dive shop to pick up some antifog for our snorkels. We are ready for the cruise!!

Then we made our way to the Disney port. The parking was easy. Waiting in line took awhile but was pretty efficient. Our port time was 1:30 but we got to our line around 1. Lucas wouldn’t nap despite being in the stroller, too excited. When we got on they announced us and said “welcome the Gopez family”. Then we got wands. Lucas really wanted to put his name on his. We made our way to our room. It’s great. It feels so much more spacious than I expected. We have a balcony; I don’t think I can ever go back to no balcony.

We decided to put on bathing suits so Lucas could get in toy story splash pad. He was there for maybe 10 minutues but then it closed for the safety drill. We all had to go to our designated safety spots for the drill. Lucas was asking a lot of questions like “is it a fire drill?”. He was scared of the loud alarm the ship made. Then it started raining, like a downpour. It was also crazy windy. Many people left but we took cover with a few other people under a ledge. Don said, “wow they really make these drills realistic nowadays” and people laughed.

After the drill we went back in to relax before dinner. We tried to get Lucas to nap but with no luck. We watched the boat take off from the port from our balcony. That was a very cool experience.

Then we had dinner at Marvel. We were seated with another Filipino family from Canada but the mom got really upset. She didn’t know you were seated with other families for cruises, and she demanded they get their own table. It was a little awkward and I felt bad for the older kids but we had a great dinner. Lucas had pizza, mac and cheese, and veggies. Don had mushrooms, salad, soup, and beef tenderloin. I had shrimp and chicken schnitzel. We had a cupcake for dessert. The food was pretty good, but the best part of the meal was the show. The avengers had to save the ship and we had to participate. Lucas loved it. Spidey showed up and Lucas got to meet him. Lucas would not stop talking about spiderman and saving the ship. He did want to know why the bad guys showed up to the ship though. Part of the video showed bad guys taking over the ship and destroying parts of it, so there were lots of questions about “did they clean up the mess yet, is the ship fixed?”.  It was a really awesome dinner.

Bloggings, Travel
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We woke up at 6:30. I told Lucas “Let’s pack our bags to go see some rockets what do we need Lucas?” and he said “safety fire stuff”. To get in the spirit of Disney we all got a disney tattoo of Cars and Toy Story. We had breakfast at the hotel. Lucas had 3 sausage patties! Then we made our way to Kennedy space center. We got there when it opened and everything looked super cool. It was not crowded at all but it was hot. The garden of rockets was super cool and we took a lot of pictures. We saw a Charlie Brown little play. The exhibit on the Atlantis shuttle was pretty cool. Lucas had a lot of fun sitting in the shuttle seat and pretending to be in space.  After Atlantis we went to the kids play area. We met up with Don’s friend Shane and his daughter Madelyn. This play area was way too crowded and wild. Most of the things were too old for Lucas.

We decided to go to Fish Lips for lunch. On the drive there Lucas slept for about 15 minutes. I felt bad that he didn’t want to get up and eat. Once we got in the restaurant he perked up and ate some mac and cheese. He also had quite a few pieces of my fish. I had fish and chips and Don had clam chowder and wings.

After lunch we all came back to the hotel. Since we missed the nap opportunity we went to the pool. I noticed Lucas had a blister on his foot from his crocs. Lucas practiced snorkeling with his puddle jumper. He looked like a pro! We let him play with the underwater camera and we stayed at the pool until about 5. Shane and Madelyn left and we ordered pizza from Kelsey’s. It was ok. We watched some of lion king. Lucas ate well and played. Then he was out by 8:10 

Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Let vacation begin

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Lucas woke up at 5 am so excited to go on vacation. He watched the Curious George movie and ate breakfast. We pulled the car around 10:15 to leave for ORD. The car was acting weird, stalled a little bit hopefully it’s ok. We packed up and left around 10:30 but we should have left earlier. There was a little bit of traffic and all lots at O’Hare were full or almost full. We finally got a spot in lot B but it’s going to be $42 a day! 

We rushed to the terminal and got thru security only to find out our flight was delayed a half hour. It was delayed due to waiting for the co-pilot.  

Once we got in thru security we went to McDonalds and got a seat by some windows. Lucas ate pretty well. As the time of the flight approached he was getting more and more tired. When we were boarding it was funny when the worker was announcing stuff about boarding he said “and no we don’t do first boarding for families… We’re going to Orlando everyone has kids”. Lucas was asleep before the plane took off.

Lucas slept a little over an hour on the flight then he watched some stuff on my tablet. There was so much turbulence they didn’t serve snacks. 

Once we got to Orlando it was pretty easy getting to baggage and then to hertz. It was one of the easier airports we have been to as far as renting a car. We got a Jeep Renegade and I’m not really sure how I feel about it.

We drove to Port Canaveral and got to a restaurant called Rising Tide around 7 pm. It was pretty good. Don had roasted chicken, I had shrimp tacos, and Lucas had cheese pizza. We started with calamari. 

We are staying at Homewood Suites. It’s 10 pm and Lucas hasn’t fallen asleep.

Bloggings, Family, Travel

Heading home

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We woke up to a rainy NYC. Lucas and I were feeling much better. Don had a great time at the wedding.

We all got ready and packed up then we checked out the hotel restaurant. There was a nice buffet at the Hotel Indigo. We got breakfast and coffee.

We had a pleasant surprise of being able to see Miguel at breakfast. Lucas had fun showing his rocket toy to him. It was good to catch up a bit especially since I missed the wedding.

After breakfast we had to head to LaGuardia. We made our way to the new fountain Lucas really wanted to see. It was nice to sit in front of it and have some lunch.

On the flight home Lucas slept most of the time. He is really becoming quite the traveler. I really can’t wait until our next trip!