Fall Break 2024: Cruise

 The second leg of our trip was our weekend cruise aboard the Utopia of the Seas. Due to the hurricane aftereffects we lost one of our days on the ship, but we made the most of having two nights! We sailed from Port Canaveral to Coco Cay and back.

We walked around the ship and did our mustering before grabbing some lunch at the Windjammer.

This ship was humungous!! There was so much to see and do it was overwhelming. 

The boys tried the Flow Rider for a while after waiting what seemed like forever! The ship was only half full because a lot of people canceled but it still felt pretty busy. 

Towards the evening we encountered some pretty rough waves so we were all feeling a little woozy for dinner. Josh and Ike did the 10 story dry slide then we got ready for dinner. We ate in the main dining room both nights and everything was excellent besides the steak!

After dinner we went to go check out the water show Aqua 80. Unfortunately it was too rocky for the divers so they canceled it a couple minutes in. We got to see it the next night though! We went to the theater show instead later on and that was pretty great. Ended the night watching some karaoke!

The next morning we were supposed to get off the ship at Coco Cay but it ended up being super rainy just after the sun rose. This was pretty disappointing but we made the best of things.

The sunrise was beautiful at least!

Since it was rainy the pools were pretty much empty so the kids went down the slides a bunch of times then tried the Flow Rider again.

We played a little trivia, walked around, and watched some football. The kids played in the arcade quite a bit and we did a lot of people watching :) Overall it was enjoyable but it would've been awesome if we could have explored the island some!

The sun finally came back out as we were getting ready for dinner. We went up to play some mini golf until it was time to eat.

I ordered Thanksgiving for dinner and it was so good!

Back to the aqua theater and this time we had much calmer waters. This show was incredible, I highly recommend!

We watched some more karaoke then headed to bed-we were all exhausted!

As we were going to sleep we randomly found video of Ike dancing the previous night on the ship's channel. Too funny!

We had to be up pretty early to disembark so we went and watched the sunrise in the solarium then got a little breakfast before it was time to leave.

Overall we really enjoyed the cruise and would like to go on another slightly longer one. We loved the boat and wished we had more time on it! The food was excellent and there were plenty of activities but the kids did get a little bored on the day it rained since all of the outdoor stuff was closed (like the zip-line and the dry slide). 

Next up Universal!

Fall Break 2024-St. Simons Island

Fall Break this year started out pretty hectic! With a hurricane coming through Florida we lost a day of our cruise so we headed to St. Simons Island Georgia for a couple of days before we started the rest of the trip!

I found this island just by searching for good AirBnB deals and I am so glad I came across it. It was such a neat place and we didn't even get to explore all of it!

Once we arrived we went down to the pier to walk around and then out to dinner at Porch for some fried chicken. 

Mom, Tony, and Ben rolled in a couple hours behind us and we all settled into our condo for the night.

Up bright and early on Friday to walk around and Josh and the kids grabbed donuts from Dulce Dough Bakery which they loved. 

We walked around the pier area with them and then Josh, Tony, and Dave headed to go golfing on Jekyll Island while the rest of us walked on the beach and hung out. Mom, Ike, and I found out about the tree carvings that were all over the island and we went out in search of as many as we could find. 
 

Mom ran into town while the rest of us left went looking for the beach. This was harder than we anticipated because you couldn't get to the beach from a lot of the access points. The tide was super high and it had flooded from the recent hurricanes. We finally found one and walked along the beach for a bit until Mom picked us up!

It was a touch windy! We decided we needed to treat ourselves to a late afternoon snack and Ike chose to go to Brogen's South and we shared some yummy appetizers.

The golfers finally returned so we left to hit some other points of interest on the island before getting dinner. 

There are some beautiful old churches surrounded by the live oaks-absolutely love this look! The first one was Christ Church Episcopal 

I had read about a labyrinth on the island-took us forever to figure out where it was but we had a blast once we found it! It was located at Wesley Church and was tucked away in a little reserve area. 

For dinner we went to CJ's Italian which was fabulous. We had way too much food but that is to be expected on vacation!

Took an after dinner walk to the pier for some sunset pictures-it was so beautiful!

We really loved this island and I would definitely come back for a longer stay. We were up bright and early to make our cruise down in Port Canaveral the next morning!