The Royal Treatment ~ R is for Roja

After the early evening on Sunday, Chris and Kylee woke up early and energized! Though the sun wouldn't appear until after 6:25, they were up earlier than that.
Not wanting to wake up Ben and perhaps letting mom go back to sleep, once they dressed we headed out to play shuffleboard at dawn on deck and perhaps to take our early morning photos in front of the funnel.



Gray morning.

The morning, neither chilly nor warm, but thick with humidity kept the usual walkers and runners away and we enjoyed the deck to ourselves, save several cast members busy with ship maintenance.

Deck four nearly dawn.

Given how many times we've played shuffleboard, I really ought to be better. I'm going to blame our nearly scoreless games this particular morning on the rain slicked deck. The little biscuits stuck to the teak decking unpredictably when shoved with the tang.



Chris and Kylee discuss which should play me next.

So the biscuit would slip along toward the scoring triangle, hit a particularly wet patch and stop cold. We had fun, regardless.

Have I mentioned I love the ship decorated for Christmas?
I do.

After the kids bored of beating me at shuffleboard (I am still embarrassingly atrocious, weather not withstanding, Chris is usually pretty good) we headed off to explore and take some pictures around the mostly quiet ship.

My children come by their Goofy attitudes honestly enough.

Not that we were particularly quiet, mind you.

Kylee decided to do a little ballet in the empty atrium.

Big Finish!

Then Kylee got tired of dancing.
Or at least Chris got tired of watching Kylee dancing.



Tired Out

After a little break they insisted on checking if the Oceaneer Club were open, despite my assertions that it were still closed.

What? Really?

It was in fact closed. The 11th deck, despite enjoying the clearing sky, still carried the rain from the previous evening, so our usual funnel pictures needed a substitute.



Thankfully the ship is full of pretty locations for pictures. People sometimes ask me why so



Many



Pictures



Of Kylee rather than Chris. My answer is that I never force Chris or Kylee to take pictures past when they're "done."
Kylee tolerates more photos, so I have more of her.

They loved getting to go downstairs "by themselves."

On returning to our stateroom, we realized all our FE gifts needed delivering! The kids love helping out with this (particularly because they can see all the other decorations people put on their stateroom doors.)

Kylee liked trying to figure out who was in each room by the magnets.

On realizing we found Chris and Casey's room, the kids started giggling and Kylee had to write a message on their dry erase board.

Chris really became curious about the water lock doors on deck 1 and asked me to take a picture of it for him.

The last little drizzles as we head into port.

No cruce la linea roja!

We returned to the room in time to watch the ship dock in Cozumel.

Watching the crew begin setting up the ramps for heading ashore.

We took the aft stairs down to the breakfast buffet in Parrot Cay.

Taking the stairs is worthwhile, if only for the art.

The kids sat in the porthole while we waited to be seated in the buffet.

Kylee and I enjoyed some oatmeal and fruit off of the buffet, while Chris opted for eggs and bacon beside his gluten free donuts. As for Ben, well...

My man makes his own Hidden Mickeys.

It's vacation, so he decided to gluten it up and pay the consequences.

I LOVE tea.

While I busied myself finishing off my mint tea, I asked Kylee how she enjoyed her birthday. She happily gave it ten bajillion points.

And two thumbs up!

Ben enjoyed a cup of Joe while Chris enjoyed a mug of milk.

Ahhhh!

Kylee decided to take her own turn taking some photographs. (Photos and my thoughts here).
After an enjoyable bit of relaxing in the room to Disney Shorts, the kids eventually wanted to head for the Oceaneer Lab. Diana enjoyed relaxing on the verandah with her cup of coffee and studies, so we left her to her own devices.

Even the carpeting in Outlook Café is perfect.

Since there wasn't a barista upstairs, we headed off down to Cove Café.

DH just had to photobomb. :P

Waiting for my drink.

Once our drinks were ready, we headed up to Outlook café to sun ourselves free of the wind.

Christine our barista.

When we realized we still needed to try to find a good location to try for our fifth cruise, five times in the picture, we decided to head upstairs to our favorite location, the Outlook Café.

Five of me...and one for next cruise.

My daughter and I each sported red pants on this day, (there is a whole story and reason behind the red pants), mostly because semi-monochromatic wardrobes with a single accent color during our cruise mean that we all look well together in photos even if our outfits don't match, per se.



At least we did five of Ben.

We sat and laughed and talked for quite a while, then we wandered the decks, enjoying that empty port day vibe on the ship.



All By Ourselves. Midday.

We headed into Studio Sea to look around for a bit.

Pretty!

The crew started a drill. Anytime you hear "For exercise, for exercise, red (or another color) parties, please report to..." that means they are doing a drill somewhere on the ship. In our case it meant all of the crew began donning life jackets and gathering on deck four port side.

Studio Sea Tables.

I love that they have posters from a ton of my favorite shows like Castle and Once Upon a Time.

I can't wait until it starts back up in March!!!

After some more wanderings, we headed back to the suite to see if mom would like to join us for Disney Charades with the kids.

Cute Bambi-esque Bank

So I shot a few more pictures of the gorgeous suite.


Antique camera

Nifty chest

Why all the detail pictures of the suite?
We really loved the styling of the suite and thought it might be fun to redo our master suite in a similar style. That way we can always be living on the ship, at least a little.

A quick check in the Lab and after the mad scientist finished testing Kylee's Pasta Palace (long story involving ninja fish), Kylee seemed game to try out charades. Chris, again, wanted to stay in the Lab. So the three mouseketeers and a little princess headed down to Studio Sea.
 This is Part 12 of an Ongoing Trip Report "The Royal Treatment" additional sections of this report can be found on the Adventures page.