Cruise 2012 - On the Boat

Sarah, Jamie and Michael enjoy the ice skating

Emma watching a film on the iPad

Sarah has a go at the climbing wall

The towel dog!

Michael and Emma at one of their favourite places - the lifts

View of the boat's promenade

Rare sight of my legs

Sarah holds onto kids beside a 10-story drop on the other side

Emma, Michael and I do our best to avoid a Norovirus outbreak

Emma and Michael loved that dog

Food! Emma demonstrates where it goes.

Basketball

Golf

Sarah smiles through Emma's preferred transport arrangement - being carried

Emma plays on the tables......

......whilst Michael shoots dinosaurs

That's the closest to a motorbike we'll ever let her get

The Dining room

Michael demonstrates his breadroll icebreaker

Emma enjoys a cocktail whilst Michael helps our team in the Beatles quiz (a perfect 20/20!)

Towel Bunny!

Emma shares her food

Alan and Alyson match the surroundings

Emma enjoys the crocodile outside the casino

Sarah has her second go on the climbing wall

Michael and Emma take some time to relax by taking on daddy at some games

Sarah tries out rollerblading

An active volcano with smoke coming out of it. Nothing to worry about apparently

The Towel Monkey

Neil, Maggie, Alan and Alyson take Emma to the golf....

...and the basketball whilst Sarah explores Sicily

The ship itself was really something. It was like a floating hotel, and had lots to do (and eat!).

Our room had a balcony and a door through to Grandma and Granddad's room. The plan had been to use pull-out beds for Emma and Michael, but it turned out we had bunk beds that came down from the ceiling over the top of the beds. There was no way that was working out, so we got a couple of mattresses and put them on the floor. It worked out really well.

There was a lot to explore. Michael and Emma really enjoyed the golf and basketball. The Black genes seem to be strong in Emma, as she would walk down the fairway of the crazy golf, plonk her ball right next to the hole then tap it in! 

There was lots of food. There was a buffet for breakfast and lunch, then we usually had our evening meal in the more formal dining room. Emma seemed to like running around the big thing of flowers at the entrance. Michael and Emma got some great food off the children's menu, and especially liked it when the waiters would give them some tomato sauce in the shape of a smiley face.

The jacuzzis were great, but the main pool itself was unheated. I'm finding that often with Emma, when she's really insistent that she wants to do something unadvisable, just letting her do it seems to be the best plan to help her realise why it's unadvisable. She went on for a while about wanting to go into the main pool (which I knew was freezing at the time). Eventually I went over with her and let her lower herself into the pool. She soon learned why I'd been trying to convince her not to do it and came out of the pool with a panic-stricken face. 

Michael and Emma seemed to really love going up and down in the lifts. Michael was desperate to push the buttons. We managed to avoid losing one of them in the lifts, but had a couple of close calls.

They enjoyed the kids club, but Michael was too young by a few months for the aged 6-9 club which had games consoles. That was for the best, as he would have played them all day, but it was hard for him to bear. 

There weren't that many kids on board, and lots of people seemed quite drawn to Emma. Sarah got asked by a stranger at the buffet one night where her beautiful blonde baby was. Everyone seemed to want to talk to her in the lifts, and Emma got better at talking back as the week went on. She often was wearing slightly over-the-top outfits (e.g. tutus) to dinner.

Michael helped us win two quizes. The first was a movie music quiz, and he recognised Batman and Harry Potter straight away from playing the lego games with me on the wii. He was also really good at the Name the Beatles song quiz, where we got a perfect 20 out of 20! We sent him up after the music quiz to collect the prize.