Merry Cruisemas - Day 4

Christmas day was a lot more somber than usual with the uncertainty of Brandon's mother. It kinda felt like Christmas was canceled because we were missing half of the family and we didn't have the usual traditions of opening presents and stockings. But we tried to make the most of it and did enjoy not having to prepare (or clean up after, any of our food). The two kids didn't seem to notice too much so the adventure continued.

The cruise line made some preparations for the holiday with a Christmas sing-along with eggnog and cookies. Here we are, singing and eating and chatting in the main foyer.

Throughout the caroling, we kept getting reports of Santa and he showed up with impeccable timing as soon as we were done with our singing. We set off to the Queen's Lounge for pictures with the jolly old man (who was actually very, very young) and sexy Mrs. Claus. Even though there weren't many children on the ship, the line still managed to be very long.



Lucy wasn't interested in sitting on Santa's lap but she was interested in her present - a little Holland America stuffed bear.




Then it was more ocean watching out the window except this time, we saw a bunch of dolphins diving through the water. They were a little too far for us to take pictures though but it was cool to see them.





Bedtime brought some diaper free time for Lucy who "helped" us as we packed to go home.

We had received updates throughout the day on Brandon's mom. While we were cruising on our way to Acapulco, the rest of the family had a sleepless night in a hospital in Cabo. When they realized that she couldn't receive the kind of care that she needed, they realized that it was time to go home. But looking for flights day of (on Christmas day, no less) proved to be challenging. Flights back to Buffalo (where my in-laws live) would have taken over 13 hours with multiple layovers and they knew that it would be too much for Brandon's mom. Fortunately, there was a direct flight back to Salt Lake City (where the majority of us lived and also, where a huge percentage of extended family lived). So Christmas evening, the rest of the family returned to SLC and checked my mother-in-law into Huntsman Cancer Institute. Brandon and I bought out plane tickets that night from Acapulco back to Salt Lake City and got ready to leave 4 days into the 14 days cruise. We would be missing Guatamala, Costa Rica, and Columbia, a ridiculous amount of food and housekeeping. But in a lot of ways, it was nice to not have so much uncertainty and be able to go home.

So the last pictures from the cruise are of the rest of us in the airport in Acapulco. We had spent the morning signing paperwork to get off the cruise (who knew it would be so much work to leave a cruise - you would think that they would be happy that they have fewer people to feed and less rooms to clean).

Here's Ethan - doing what he does best. Lucy certainly seemed to be entertained though - it's always so nice to have family around to help out with the little ones.


And Adrian, doing what he does best:

Maybe there was a little relief to have the blessed internet back. It would have been good to have the 2-week break from it but there might have been a little hyperventilation from the facebook/twitter addicts.


Brandon got in some comic book time - rereading Miyazaki's Naussica.

Some things just aren't meant to be and the Panamanian cruise for the Dayton Family over the holidays was one of them. Wish we could have had a Merrier Christmas and Happier New Year's than we did but there is always next year...

Cruisemas Eve in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - Day 3

Since our boat (the ms Amsterdam) left so late from LA (after 10:00 pm instead of the scheduled 5:00 PM) it made us very late for our first port, Cabo San Lucas. Instead of arriving at 11:00 AM, we arrived at 3:00 PM so we had some time to kill on the boat that morning.

Although the ship seemed mammoth at first, we quickly explored every crevice in search of entertainment for Lucy.

We made ourselves at home in the empty Queen's Lounge which was just a huge assembly hall for performances and comedy routines at night. Not much going on there during the day except huge windows to look out of...

We then made our way to the Explorer's Lounge where we found Natalie working on a puzzle.


I had to take a picture of the puzzle she was working on because if you look close, you can see Lucy's tiny little feet prints in the dust of the box.

I have no idea what we were all doing here - goofing around or on our way to lunch.


This is a sample of how we ate - often, dessert first (or only). The Lido deck was where the giant buffet was which was open almost all day long. I preferred the fancy restaurant because I have no self control and at least you got to order and have some level of portion control (and the food was better) but at the buffet, it was a lot of really good looking, but somewhat mediocre tasting food that I ate way too much of. However, the buffet was so much more convenient and family friendly. Do they have cruises where you can practice some portion control and not eat so much?

We finally made it off the boat but it was just me, Brandon, Lucy, Adrian, Natalie, and Taylor. Damian, Cameron, Ethan, and their parents stayed on the boat. Since we were so late arriving at port, we didn't have much time to explore - only about 3 hours. We decided to do what anyone would do when they are on vacation - hit up Walmart! This ended up being kind of ridiculous because we had to get a taxi and spend all that time getting there and it was horribly busy with the locals and tourists. But Brandon and I did forget our sunglasses and we also wanted some walkie talkies and some watches because there were NO clocks on the ship and we never had any idea what time it was (I'm so used to checking the time on my cell phone). We also stocked up on a few beach toys for the kids and some bubbles and snacks.

We finally made it to the beach but by that time, the sun was already setting and it was pretty chilly. Certainly no weather for swimming but I think that the kids had fun.




The sand was pretty rough but Lucy couldn't get enough of it and the bubbles.





But the bubbles managed to get in her eye and that was no fun trying to clean her up. She had also started a nasty cold which started on the ship (or the plane) and took forever to get over.







We got a recommendation from our taxi driver for a restaurant a quick walk from the beach and ate some yummy tacos. But then before we knew it, it was back on to the ship to leave again.

It wasn't until we got back on the boat and it had left that we found out that Brandon's parents and two of his brothers, Cameron and Damian had left the cruise to check into a Mexican hospital. Brandon's mom, whose cancer relapsed in April of 2010, had been undergoing cancer treatment through much of the year and was not taking fluids or eating since arriving on the cruise. When the ship's doctor was called to give her an IV to keep her fluids up, they also tested her blood and saw that her white blood cell count was extremely low, leaving her with practically no immune function which made the cruise with all of its germs, very dangerous for her. So we were stuck on the cruise for the next couple of days - it became a waiting game to figure out where we had to fly to meet them.

Cruisemas - Day 1 & 2

It seems that Christmas was forever ago but I thought I would post some pictures from our Christmas cruise. My camera is always a little wonky but I took more pictures than I realized.

We start off on the plane on our way from Salt Lake City to LA on Wednesday, December 22nd.
I have very few pictures of Lucy with Brandon so I am glad I could get a few on this trip.

And Lucy adores her Uncle Damian so we of course, had to get one of them. Ethan was with us as well if you can seen him in the bottom left corner of the above photo. Fortunately, our flight was direct but unfortunately, we had to spend quite a chunk of change to change flights since I had no idea how much time we needed to give ourselves to get to the cruise and we were getting worried that we might be late. As it ended up, we had plenty of time and the cruise left very late so we would have been fine but I guess the peace of mind was worth it. We also got to have a family breakfast at the hotel where the other half of the family stayed the night after coming in from Buffalo.

A cruise is the perfect vacation for our family since we can all go off and do our own thing. So here Brandon, Lucy and I are on Day 2, eating lunch in the fancier restaurant on the ship since we couldn't find anyone. Next cruise, we will remember to take walkie talkies since our cell phones don't work.
Brandon was obviously very excited to eat...

Lucy was loving the bread. She was quite well behaved for the meal and got lots of smiles and "Awws" from other passengers and the crew since the majority of the passengers were older and there weren't many toddlers around (or kids of any age for that matter).

Lucy spent a lot of time with her cousin, Taylor on the trip since they were the only grandkids on the trip and Lucy absolutely adores her cousin. Kid-friendly distractions were scarce on the boat. The weather was too chilly the first couple of days to go swimming and Lucy wasn't old enough to go the daycare (although Taylor was - lucky Adrian & Natalie). They amused themselves a bit with the nativity set:

Then went on to a kids' cooking class...
...which consisted of a lot of waiting in a cold, cold room...

...and finally, a little sugar cookie making (and don't worry, Mom - we all washed our hands before).

I have to admit, I was really disappointed in all the kids activities (or lack of). They were very poorly planned and executed. I guess we should have expected that from Holland America since they cater more to older people. I think out of the 12,000 passengers, only about 20 were children. And we didn't stay on the for the whole cruise so we didn't get to experience all of them. I guess that they assumed that the excursions at port would make up for the boring-ness of the cruise days for a parent with their kid. But since I had never been on a cruise before, I had no idea what to expect.

But you soon get into the swing of cruise life. Here we are, eating fancy dinner sans Brandon's parents who ate in their room since his mom wasn't feeling well:Damian, as always, provided much of the comic relief.

Despite the small size of our rooms, much entertainment was had in there:
Lucy got a kick out of the fake window we had. At the head of the bed, there were curtains all across the wall but if you looked behind them, it was just a wall. They might as well have painted a picture of the sea there.

Lucy loved the phone too since she didn't have our cell phones to play with. Despite the tight sleeping quarters, Lucy slept pretty well. She made it into our bed a couple of nights but it wasn't so bad because the bed was a lot bigger than our bed at home. We were pretty lax with her bedtime and schedule overall, so she was probably exhausted from all the days activities and the excitement of being in a new place. We ended up having a lot of quiet, dark time with her since we couldn't really leave her alone so one of us had to stay with her while she napped or went to bed early (although she did have a couple really late nights - staying up and singing karaoke).

All in all, it was pretty amazing to be on a mini-city floating on the water.