Do you want to know something crazy?  With all of my cruises and all of the port stops I have made along the way, I have never been to a cruise line’s private island.  For whatever reason, none of my cruises have stopped at private islands, and I’ve never even been to the Bahamas before.  I was really looking forward to seeing what it was like, especially knowing that Princess honors their drink packages on their private island!  With all of the expensive excursions we had booked for the rest of the cruise, it was nice knowing that today could be totally free (or at least totally covered by our cruise fare).  

My vision for today was that each cabin in our group would get off the ship at their leisure and we’d magically find each other in some central spot on the island (hopefully with the assistance of the Medallion location tracker if it worked ashore).  A slight wrench in the plans came when I realized that Princess Cay does not have a pier for the ships to tie up and dock at, so we would need to take a tender to shore.  My parents’ suite included priority access to the tenders whenever they wanted to go ashore.  We doubted we would be allowed to mooch off their perks, especially since they were likely to be the last of the 3 cabins to be ready to go ashore with them being relatively late risers.  My brother and I decided our families would meet up and take the tender together so the kids could play on the beach, and my parents would join us when they were ready.

Despite his 9pm bedtime, Ian woke us up at 7am this morning.  I considered telling him to go back to sleep, but instead I just got up, got both of us dressed, and took him upstairs to the buffet for breakfast while Jason slept in a little later.  I have sort of figured out the logistics of managing taking Ian to the buffet when it’s just the two of us:  I take 2 empty plates and keep them stacked together, and put all of our food onto one plate, then when we sit down at the table, I divide it up into separate plates.  This would have been a lot easier to manage if Princess didn’t use such extremely heavy plates though!  I understand they want them to be durable, but plastic plates are durable and weigh a fraction of what these ceramic plates weighed!

We grabbed a table next to the window to admire the view while we ate.  In the distance, I noticed a cruise ship docked at an island.  It was only 8am at this point, and we weren’t due to arrive at Princess Cays for another hour, so I assumed it was a ship from a different cruise line docked at a private island adjacent to Princess Cays.  

One of the waiters stopped at our table to ask if we wanted coffee, water, or juice, and I asked him about that ship.  He said it was another Princess ship at Princess Cay.  That didn’t sound correct to me because firstly, that ship was docked and I already knew Princess Cay does not have a dock, and secondly, I had looked up the cruise ship schedule for all of our ports and this was the one time I knew we would not have any other ships in port with us.  

As we got closer, I saw the ship had 2 red funnels, which meant it definitely was not a Princess ship.  When we were sailing past it, I could clearly see the Mickey heads on the 2 funnels, so now I knew it was a Disney ship and they were docked at their own private island!  Whew!  I hoped that meant that my research was correct and we would have Princess Cay all to ourselves today.

When we finished eating, we went up to deck 17 for a better view of the Disney ship.

While we were up there, Jason texted me that he was awake, so we met him back down in the buffet.  We ran into my brother’s family, so we all sat together while they ate breakfast.  My brother did not want to deal with waiting in line for tender tickets, so he wanted to stay on the ship a little longer and get off when the initial rush died down.  I didn’t see any purpose in twiddling my thumbs on the ship, so I said I would get tender tickets for my cabin, and we would go ashore first and find seats for the group, then my brother planned to find us a little later.

As instructed on the information left in our cabin, we went down to the Sushi Bar on Deck 6 to get tickets for the tender.  Only 1 person from each group had to be there to get however many tickets they needed, so Jason took Ian back to the cabin to grab our beach bags.  When I got to deck 6, there was already a line of people extending from the sushi bar down to the mid-ship elevators, but it moved quickly.  I watched as they handed the last tickets for tender 5 to the person in front of me, and then gave me 3 tickets to tender 6.  They instructed me to wait in the Piazza on deck 5 until they called my tender number, so I went downstairs to find some empty chairs and texted Jason where he should meet me.  

As it played out, we did not have to wait very long so it was a good thing that Jason and Ian were quick to find me!  Ten minutes later, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker that we were safely anchored in the bay and tickets numbered 1 through 6 could proceed down to deck 4 to board the awaiting tenders.  I wasn’t expecting them to call 6 tenders all at once!  We were already sitting right near the mid-ship elevators, so we grabbed our bags, walked down the mid-ship stairs one level, and boarded what must have been the first tender of the day because we happened to be sitting at the right spot.  

Last night, Cruise Director Tee said the tender ride would take 25 to 30 minutes, so we found seats inside the boat, prioritizing shade over getting a good photo of the ship.  It took a few minutes for the tender to fill up, and then we were on our way.

I’m not sure what kind of clock Tee uses, but that tender ride took exactly 8 minutes!  I should have known it wouldn’t take that long because I could see we were anchored very close to the island.  Maybe he meant it would take up to 30 minutes from the time you stepped foot on the tender until you got off at the island?!  

Once we were off the tender, we turned left and started walking, hoping to find a map or something to guide us to where we should go.  We never saw a map, but we did find an information desk.  I asked if there was an area that was good for children to play, and she said to just keep walking and we would eventually see the playground on our right.  Since we had never been here before, we thought that was vague.  We didn’t want to get lost, but as we started walking, we realized why she was so vague.  There is basically one long sidewalk that spans the width of the beach, so you really can’t get lost!  We started walking in search of a place to set up camp for the day.

As we walked, we saw tons of lounge chairs on our left side lining the beach, and then we found the children’s play area on the right side where the lady said it would be.  There was a small swimming pool with a few lounge chairs with umbrellas, but there weren’t very many of them and it looked like those were meant for parents whose kids were actively swimming at that time.

Next to the pool, there was a large playground that looked like a lot of fun for the kids and we decided we would come back here later in the day when my brother’s family joined us so Ian would have kids to play with.

There was also a separate shaded area with adirondack chairs and giant foam pieces to build and play with.  Ian actually had those same blue foam pieces at his daycare from when he was younger, so he was familiar with them.

We decided not to set up camp at the play area, and kept walking along the path to find our perfect spot for the day.  We wanted to get further down, away from where the tenders drop you off, in hopes it wouldn’t be as crowded.  We saw the place where they would serve lunch later in the day.  Just behind that were lots of big picnic tables under shade structures, which created a shadow over the nearby loungers.  This seemed like a good spot for us, but what sealed the deal was when we saw the lagoon!  The beach in this area was protected by a jetty, and that created a lagoon with very calm water.  It was perfect for the kids to play and swim, and we could easily see them from the nearby lounge chairs.

When we arrived, there was hardly anyone in this section of the island, and it really felt like we had our own private beach.   We found 5 lounge chairs in the shade, so we reserved those plus one of the picnic tables right next to the loungers, and decided this would be our spot for the day.  The Coconut Beach Bar was right next to our chairs, so I texted this photo to my brother and parents so they would know where to find us.

Once we were all set up, I left Jason and Ian to play on the beach while I walked around a little further into the island to make sure we really did find the best possible spot and that there wasn’t something better that we hadn’t seen yet.

After I passed a few more tents with picnic tables for lunch, I got to a section of beach with cabanas and sunbeds that were available to rent through the shore excursions desk.

That seemed like the end of the island, so I turned around to retrace my steps in the opposite direction.

On my way back, I noticed this 3 story lookout tower and made a mental note that I wanted to come back here later in the day with all the kids.  I knew they would love climbing up all those stairs, and even though I personally wasn’t as thrilled about climbing the stairs, I hoped the views from the top would be worth it.

When I made it back to our lounge chairs, I was happy to see there was still hardly anyone in this section of the beach.

A few minutes later, my brother texted that he was on the tender.  I wasn’t sure how we would all communicate on the island, so it was a nice surprise to see that our Princess wifi worked and we could text through iMessage like we had been doing on the ship.  The medallions worked for making purchases, but not for the location feature, so I told my brother where to go to find us when he got ashore, and a few minutes later, he found us.  

Around that time, I noticed the crew arrived to set up at Coconuts Beach Bar, so as soon as they were done, I went over and used my medallion to get a strawberry daiquiri.  NOW I feel like I’m on vacation at a tropical beach!

There was only one thing missing… a straw!  The crew said there are no straws on the island, which made it very challenging to drink this frozen drink.  I wish I had known and I would have brought a straw from the ship, or just ordered a beer instead.  

We spent the next few hours relaxing on the beach while the kids played in the water.  I was really nervous about how Ian would get along with his cousins because he hasn’t seen them since he was 9 months old.  Luckily, they got along great and Ian loved playing with them any chance he got.

At one point, my brother came over with a coconut that had fallen from one of the palm trees.  He cracked a little hole in the top and everyone tasted some of the water.

As the morning went on, a few more people joined us in our section of the beach, but it really never felt crowded.  It was lucky that we were the only ship in port today because I imagine it would be a different situation with more than one ship here.

Around 11:15am, I  noticed that some people had plates of food at the nearby picnic tables.  We walked over to the food pavilion buffet, conveniently located right behind our seats.  

They must have just opened a few minutes earlier, so there was no line yet.  There were 2 sides to the buffet which both had the same options…  BBQ chicken, grilled chicken breast, grilled fish, pork ribs, hot dogs, and hamburgers, plus a bunch of toppings.

I got a hotdog and cheeseburger for myself.  It was my mission to get Ian to try hotdogs and hamburgers on this cruise.  There’s really no reason he wouldn’t like them aside from his stubbornness against trying new foods.  Much to my dismay, he rejected both options and asked for a sandwich made from a hamburger bun with a few slices of American cheese.  At least he was eating something with a little protein!

Just as we were sitting down to eat lunch, my mom texted to say she and my dad arrived on the island.  I’m not really sure what they did all morning, but at least they finally joined us.  My dad was wearing his custom Pop shirt with pictures of the 3 grandkids, so I had to get a photo of them all together!

After lunch, the kids were eager to climb the lookout tower, so Jason and I took them over there.

As expected, the kids all ran up the stairs like they thought an ice cream truck was waiting for them at the top.  When I finally got up there, I was treated to a beautiful view of the beach.

While I was busy taking my photos, the kids must have lost interest in the views because they had already started climbing down the stairs.  I sent Jason to run after them while I finished soaking up the views, then made my way back down.  When I got to the bottom, my niece and nephew were busy picking flowers off one of the bushes.

Never one to be left out, Ian wanted a photo with me too.  I tried to get one of him with his cousins, but he just wanted one with his mommy.

By the time we got back to our lounge chairs, my brother and SIL were finished eating lunch, so we all decided to head over to the kids play area for a little while.  Since that was halfway back towards the cruise ship tenders, and we knew we wanted to head back to the ship early to avoid waiting in long tender lines, we decided to pack up our belongings and vacate our lounge chairs.  It was now 12:30pm and we noticed the beach was much more crowded than earlier in the day.  Every time we stood up from a lounge chair to grab a drink at the bar or grab something for lunch, someone came over to ask if we were leaving and if they could take our lounger.  We constantly had to keep defending our turf, so it just made sense to give up the chairs at this point since we didn’t think we’d come back to this area of the beach.

We all went over to the kids area and watched them play on the playground and splash in the kiddie pool for a little while.  Around 1:15pm, the kids were getting tired, so we decided to take that as our cue to pack up and head back to the tenders.  That proved to be a great decision because there was no line at all and we walked right up to the security x-rays and then immediately onto a tender which was already half-full.

It’s nice that they provide shade in case people do have to wind up and down the corrals at the end of the day.

We sat upstairs on the tender so I could try to take some photos on the ride back.  We had a great view of the other side of the island.  I never thought to walk over there (the side to the right of the tender docks), but it looked like a nice calm section of the beach.

As we left the dock, I could see a glimpse of the rest of the beach.  Princess Cays was such a beautiful island, and I was so happy we got to spend a few hours there.

I tried to get a good photo of the ship, but we were moving into the sun so the ship was in silhouette until we got close enough that the ship could block the sun, and by then we were too close to capture the whole ship in my photo.  Oh well!

We all thought it was funny that we had to scan our medallions and go through security with x-rays when leaving the island, prior to boarding the tender… and then do it all over again when we exited the tender and got off the ship.  Did they think we collected contraband from a passing boat during that 5 minute journey?  Or perhaps someone hopped onto the moving tender to sneak onboard?  I guess they can never be too safe!

Once we got through security, Jason took Ian up to the cabin to take a shower, and I went straight up to the Lido pool bar to grab us some drinks to bring back to the cabin.  This time, I got myself an Elderflower and Meyer Lemon Spritz with St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, fresh citrus, mint, prosecco, and meyer lemon club soda.

After their showers, Jason and Ian took a nap while I took my shower.  In an effort to avoid waking them up, I went into my parents’ cabin to blow dry my hair, and then I spent some time relaxing outside on their balcony.  So remember how we had sailed past the Disney cruise ship earlier this morning and I assumed they were docked at their own private island?  Well yes, that was technically true, but it wasn’t really their own island.  They were at the southern end of the same island as Princess Cays, Eleuthera in the Bahamas.  The Disney section is called Lookout Cay, and Princess Cays is located just a short distance up the shore.  If you had a car, I’m sure you could easily drive from one area to the other.  I actually just looked up Eleuthera on Google Maps and the island is much bigger than I realized.  There are several resorts throughout the island, so really Lookout Cay and Princess Cay is just a private beach, not actually a private island.  The more you know!

While we were sitting on the balcony, we could see the Disney ship still docked at their pier.  

That looked like a verrrrrry long pier!  I just looked it up and according to Google, it is a half mile long!  We could see that they had a tram running back and forth so the passengers didn’t have to walk.  

Just before our 5:20pm reservation, all 9 of us met outside the deck 6 elevators to enter the Amalfi dining room together.  Now that our cabins were linked, they had no trouble assigning us to the same table where we sat last night.

I ordered the fried mushrooms and the crab seafood cocktail appetizers, followed by the pork belly entree.  Everything was served at the appropriate temperatures and tasted delicious.

Unfortunately, service was incredibly slow tonight.  My appetizers were served at 5:55pm (35 minutes after we were seated), and my entree was served at 6:20pm.  None of us wanted to wait around to order our desserts and wait for them to be served, and my brother was eager to head to the theater for the 7pm production show, so we all opted to skip dessert and grab something later from the buffet if we wanted it.

We dropped off Ian at camp when they opened at 7pm.  On last year’s cruise, the shows were at 7:30pm and 9:30pm, so it worked out perfectly to drop Ian at camp when they opened at 7pm, and then have 30 minutes to walk from deck 17 aft to deck 6 or 7 forward to the theater, with time to spare to grab a drink from one of the bars along the way.  This year, the shows were at 7pm and 9pm, so it was impossible for us to catch the start of the 7pm show.  I wish the camp coordinated their timing better with the evening shows because we weren’t the only parents facing this dilemma.  We had a similar issue on our Carnival cruise this summer, but they accommodated us by letting us drop off Ian a few minutes early, plus the camp was at the forward elevators, so it was an easy journey straight down to get to the theater.  On this cruise, we had to walk the entire length of the ship to get from camp to the theater, so in the end, we decided it was easier to watch the 9pm shows most nights, even if that meant we couldn’t sit with my brother’s family.  

Tonight, there was a 7:15pm comedy show in the Vista Lounge, so that worked out well with our logistics.  We took the aft elevators straight down from camp at deck 17 to the Vista Lounge on deck 7, and found seats for us and my parents.  We even had a few minutes to spare so Jason could grab us some drinks before the show started.  Tonight’s comedian was Brandon Vestal, and Jason and I both found his dry, subdued jokes very funny.  I kept looking over at my parents and I could tell they didn’t find it funny at all.  I guess everyone has the right to their own opinions!

After the comedy show, I went up to the Bellini Bar for a Tropical Bellini, with Bacardi Superior, Prosecco, agave, and lime, while Jason got us seats in Princess Live for the 8pm trivia game.

The trivia game was sort of like Jeopardy style, with 5 categories, and each category had 5 different questions.  I forgot to write down the categories in my notes, but it was definitely tricky and I think we only knew a few of the answers.  It was fun to play along, but we left a little early to find seats in the theater for the 9pm production show.  

Tonight’s show was Spotlight Bar, which was our favorite show from last year’s cruise.  We enjoyed it just as much this year!  It was set in a local neighborhood bar from opening to closing time one night, and the patrons visiting the bar sang familiar pop songs to share stories about their lives.  I really enjoyed the song choices and choreography.  It featured “Brave” and “She Used To Be Mine” by Sara Bareilles, “Havana” by Camila Cabello, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” by Stevie Wonder, and “When I Was Your Man” by Bruno Mars.  There were 2 songs that I found particularly entertaining.  They sang “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X, and the choreography featured the male dancers dressed like cowboys, dancing a country line dance on top of the restaurant tables.  I also really enjoyed when they sang “Haven’t Met You Yet” by Michael Buble because it was from the perspective of a girl meeting a bunch of first dates from a dating app.  Each man acted out a stereotypically bad first date behavior, until the last guy came out and was a perfect gentleman.  They stayed together for the rest of the show, and as the patrons left the bar at the end of the night, that couple left together.  It was very clever, and I appreciated the creativity.

I tried to take photos throughout the show, but the 5x zoom on my iPhone was no match for how far back we were sitting in the theater.

The show ended at 9:45pm, giving us just enough time to walk across the ship once again and take the aft elevators up to deck 17 to pick up Ian from camp before they closed at 10pm.  We all went back to the cabin to get ready for bed.  There was a paper on our bed reminding us to set our clocks ahead one hour tonight, so by the time we got ready for bed, we went to sleep around midnight on the new time.  Conveniently, tomorrow would be a sea day when we had no need to wake up early!

Today’s drinks total:  22

Up next: our first sea day

Saturday, December 27 ~ Embarkation Day

As has become my norm, I didn’t get much sleep on the night before Embarkation Day.  Usually that is my own fault as the excitement of our upcoming cruise makes it hard for me to relax and fall asleep.  This time around, it was actually Ian’s fault that I didn’t get much sleep because he kept waking us up to ask questions about the cruise… Does the cruise ship have a theater?  Are we going on any small boats, and do they have a theater?  Does our cabin have curtains?  Are there curtains on the small boats?  Clearly he was very excited for the cruise and couldn’t sleep with all the questions on his mind.  He woke us up at 10pm, 10:45pm, and 11:30pm, but we didn’t hear from him after that so I assume he finally fell asleep for the night.

My alarm went off at 6:30am, and I immediately jumped out of bed to get ready for the day.  Who cares that I didn’t get enough sleep last night?  We have a cruise ship to drive to!  I turned off my alarm and before anything else, I checked Cruise Mapper to locate the Enchanted Princess.  Just as expected, she was docked in Port Everglades, but annoyingly, she was deep into the port at Pier 21 instead of the more convenient Pier 2.

Today would be a very busy day at Port Everglades with 6 cruise ships doing turn-arounds, including some megaships, and all of them were transitioning from their Christmas cruise to their New Year’s cruise so it was likely that they were all sailing at their maximum passenger capacity.  Fingers crossed that we don’t get stuck in a ton of traffic!

I got dressed, ate a quick breakfast, and Jason woke up around 7am and did the same.  Not surprisingly, after all of his questions last night, Ian slept later this morning than he did all week.  While we waited for him to wake up, we finished the rest of our packing and loaded our luggage into the car.  Ian finally rolled out of bed around 8am, so we got him dressed and strapped into his car seat and let him eat his breakfast in the car.

A side note about our medallions… When we booked the cruise, we purchased the Plus Package for Jason and myself, which includes free shipping of your medallions prior to the cruise.  When we did this last year, we were unsure how they would handle Ian’s medallion because he did not have the package, but he was in our cabin.  Luckily, they just lumped him together with us and shipped all 3 medallions together before our cruise.  Armed with that knowledge, we had no worries that all 3 medallions would ship together for this year’s cruise, but we were faced with a different dilemma.  Princess claims to ship their medallions 2-3 weeks before the sail date, but I have heard people mention that they didn’t receive theirs until the week prior to sailing.  Our dilemma was that we were flying to my parents’ house in Florida one week prior to sailing, and we were worried the medallions would arrive in Phoenix after we left.  Our solution was to ship our medallions to my parents’ house where we were confident we could receive them before the cruise.  After entering the shipping address and completing my order (which did indeed include Ian’s medallion for free), the confirmation indicated that it would ship to the cruise port and we could pick it up on embarkation day.  Wait, what?!  I canceled the order and did it again, making extra sure that I clicked “ship to home” and entered my parents’ address, and once again, the confirmation said it would be shipped to the port.  At that point, I decided to just let it be and hope for the best.  If it shipped to my parents’ house, then great, that would be more convenient.  If it ended up shipping to the port, then that just meant we would need to wait in an extra line to retrieve it, but it’s not like that would cancel our cruise or anything.  Sure enough, 2 weeks before our sail date (and 1 week before we left Phoenix), all 3 of our medallions were delivered to my parents’ house.  Whew!  

Princess’ medallions are the exact same size as Apple’s AirTags, so last year I bought 3 velcro bracelet AirTag holders in different colors to identify who is who.  They were still in good condition so we reused them this year.  Everyone donned their bracelets prior to climbing in the car, and we were all ready to go for our 2-hour drive to Ft. Lauderdale.

We finally left my parents house at 8:25am.  Luckily, there was no traffic and we were in Ft. Lauderdale by 10am.  We stopped at a gas station to fill up the tank, and pulled into the car rental drop-off location at 10:10am.  Budget has an office in the Ft. Lauderdale airport, but we opted to use the location closer to the cruise port.

It was crazy chaotic when we arrived, and we feared we would be waiting for hours to get on the free shuttle to the port.  We considered just taking an Uber, but when we walked over to where all the people were standing, we realized they were all waiting to pick up their rental cars.  We asked around and there was only one other family waiting for the shuttle to the port!  Perfect!  Literally one minute later, the shuttle pulled up, and a shocking number of people got off given the size of the bus.  We all got on and picked our seats, then a bunch of other people got on after us.  The driver kept loading on people and luggage until even the center aisle was filled with people standing.  I probably shouldn’t have been surprised given how many people got off when the shuttle arrived, but I did have to protect myself from the man standing over me when we went around turns as he lost his balance and nearly sat on my head!  

There were people from 5 of the 6 ships in port on our shuttle, and just our luck, we were dropped off last, but we were still thankful to avoid all the traffic around the port.  Our original plan was to drop off big bags at the ship first, then return the rental car and only have our carry-on bags with us on the shuttle.  We decided against it, thinking it would be much faster to only go to the port once, even if it meant schlepping our checked bags a little further.  We were glad we kept the big bags with us because we didn’t have to carry them at all!  Someone at Budget helped us get them on and off the shuttle, and the porters at the port were waiting right where the shuttle dropped us off to take them from us.  My brother drove to the port to drop off my SIL, niece, nephew, and all the luggage, and he said the traffic was horrible.  I think the car rental shuttle had access to a different entrance to the port because we did see lots of cars sitting in traffic, but we just zipped right on through, hopping from one ship to the next until we were finally dropped off at the Enchanted at 10:45am.

After handing off our checked bags to the porters, we were happy to see that the lines for security were relatively short, and it moved quickly because there were about 5 lanes open.  We took the elevator upstairs and there was no line at all for both the blue and green lanes at check in.  There were plenty of agents at both counters, so I have a feeling the lines were kept under control even during the inevitable rush a few hours later.  Our agent scanned our passports and told us we could board straight away!

I promise Jason and Ian were excited, despite looking like they were being dragged to slaughter in this photo!

We stepped aboard at 11:04am, exactly 20 minutes after getting out of the car rental shuttle.  That makes 3 cruises in a row for us having super easy and fast boarding experiences!  We went straight up to the cabin to see if it was ready, and we saw our steward in the hallway.  She said she was done cleaning our room and we could leave our carry-on bags inside if we wanted.  That was much appreciated as now we were more mobile to explore the ship.  Before we had a chance to mess up the cabin, I snapped a few photos.  It was identical to the cabin we had last year on the Discovery, so there weren’t any surprises.

Open closet, with shelves and a safe behind the narrow door in the middle, and the bathroom behind the door on the right:

Our bed, with nightstands on either side, each with a shelf, 2 drawers, and a lamp with a USB charging port:

The desk, minifridge, coffee table, and love seat were at the back of the cabin.  We asked Ian to lay down on the loveseat and he was still short enough to fit comfortably!  That was a huge relief because if we had to open up the pull-out couch, it would block our access to the balcony door while he was asleep.  When we saw our steward again, we asked her to just put a sheet on top of the cushions and not to open up the full bed for Ian, and she said that was no problem.

I loved how many outlets they had in our cabin.  In addition to the USB ports in each nightstand lamp, there were 5 other outlets on the desk, including 2 US ports and 3 international ports.  I always travel with my international travel adaptor so I could have used the other ports, but I never needed them.  I do wish they could have mounted the phone to the wall, as there was so little counter space in the cabin and the phone took up valuable real estate.

Another view of the cabin:

The typical pile of paperwork was waiting for us on the desk…

Muster instructions:

Today’s patter:

Information about the medallion:

Daily dinner themes in the buffet:

Information for guests with children on board:

We also spoke to our steward about opening up the door between our balcony and my parents’ balcony.  She said that was no problem and she would take care of it later this afternoon.

Even though our steward said the cabin was ready and we could take our time in there, we wanted to check a few more things off our to-do list while the ship was fairly empty.  Since our cabin was all the way aft, we took the aft elevators up to deck 17 to register Ian at camp.  I had already done his pre-registration online when checking in for the cruise, so I just had to make sure all the information they had was correct.  I made sure that all 6 adults in our group were listed to sign Ian in and out of camp, and then we were all set.  This is the only opportunity for parents to see the inside of the camp room, so I took a quick look around.  It was basically the same space as the camp on Discovery Princess, but I was thrilled to see they had trucks for Ian to play with.  Those who read last year’s review will remember that they did not have one single toy in any of the camp rooms that had wheels (cars, trucks, etc.).  

We also made sure to show Ian the bathroom so he would know where to go when needed.  It was great that they had a child-sized toilet in the bathroom in this room for camp as it’s for kids 3 to 7 years old.  The room for kids 8 to 12 years old only had a normal adult-sized toilet, and he was in that room on the port days, so the staff had to bring him over to the younger kids room if he needed to go potty.

When we were ready to leave camp, we had to practically drag Ian out of the room, so that was a good sign for him agreeing to go to camp during the cruise.  We took the stairs down one level to deck 16 so we could get our first drinks of the cruise from the Wake View Bar.  I opted for an Ultimate Cooler, with Tito’s vodka, watermelon, passion fruit, and cranberry, and it was the perfect way to kick off this cruise!

They had a few special drinks themed for the New Year’s Eve cruise, but they were all priced above the $15 limit of the Plus Package.  I probably could have gotten one and just paid the $3 difference, but I felt like there were enough options that did fall under the $15 limit so there was no reason to spend extra money for these drinks.

We took our drinks to go and spent some time walking around the outer decks.  I haven’t cruised out of Florida since 2018, and I must say that I really missed these incredible views on Embarkation Day.  The cloud-less bright blue sky, the boats zipping around in the ocean, tons of cruise ships docked all around us, and a backdrop of beaches and condos dotting the horizon.  There was just so much to see!

We have a tradition of taking a photo with the life ring on Embarkation Day.  We have done it on every cruise we have taken, so of course, we had to take our photo today too.  At first, Ian didn’t want to be in the photo, so Jason and I just asked someone walking by to take one of the two of us.

Of course, seeing us take our photo made Ian want to take one too.  He wouldn’t let us take a photo with all 3 of us together, but he did agree to be in one on his own, so that’s better than nothing!

We ended our walk with a view overlooking the mid-ship Sky Pool.  It was now just after 12 noon, and still didn’t seem very busy on board.

None of us were particularly hungry, but we decided to get a light lunch before the buffet got too crowded.  I must have been in a seafood mood because I got an assortment of calamari, shrimp, scallops, and mussels, a pre-made smoked salmon sandwich, and some balsamic mushrooms to say I ate a vegetable.  It was actually really funny when I got the smoked salmon sandwich because everyone who noticed it literally oohed and ahhed out loud when they saw it in the buffet.

Once we were all seated and eating, I tried to order drinks to be delivered to our table, but the Princess app wouldn’t let us.  I’m not sure if these changes are fleet-wide or specific to the Enchanted, but we were limited on which locations we were allowed to order drinks to.  Last year, we loved that we could order drinks on the app and have them brought to wherever we were sitting, but on this cruise, that feature only worked in certain places around the ship.  This was what the app said when I tried to order drinks in the buffet:

We ended up flagging down a roaming waiter and ordered a margarita and an aperol spritz.  He brought it back to our table fairly quickly, but as I noticed was a trend throughout the ship, my drink wasn’t mixed at all.  Of course, I didn’t realize it before taking a sip.  Aperol without the spritz is very bitter, and I immediately realized the issue and mixed the drink with the cardboard straw.

We used the app to watch the muster video while we ate, then went down to the Vista Lounge to check in at our station when we finished lunch.  Easy peasy!

Around that time, my parents texted me that they were onboard.  They left Port St. Lucie way later than we did, and I had no idea where they were or when they would get onboard, so it was nice knowing they finally made it.  While we were walking around and exploring the ship, my brother’s family was eating lunch, and they finished before we were ready to start eating.  We tracked them down near the mid-ship pool, so we texted my parents to meet us there so we could all take a photo together.  My mom bought everyone these matching shirts, so we had to get one group photo before we all got changed for dinner.

After the group photo, my mom mentioned that she saw our checked luggage had been delivered.  Jason, Ian, and I went back to the cabin so the boys could change into bathing suits.  I told Jason to spend a few hours at the pool with Ian so he could swim with his cousins, and I could have the cabin empty to spend some time unpacking.  It took me over 2 hours, but I succeeded in unpacking all of our stuff just in time for sail away at 3pm.  I texted Jason to come back down to the cabin so we could watch sail away from my parents’ balcony, but he didn’t see the message because he was still in the pool with Ian.  When I felt the ship was moving, I stepped out onto our balcony.  On a normal cruise when I am only cruising with the people in my one cabin, this balcony would be amazing.  It was significantly deeper than the standard balcony we had last year, including a big table to eat meals outside, and both chairs included foot stools.

I noticed the steward had finished opening up the door to my parents’ balcony, so I walked over and found them basking in the sun.

Their balcony was really huge.  I was able to capture all of it when I zoomed out with the 0.5 camera on my iPhone.  If you look on the far left, you can see the door to my balcony just beyond the chair.  With all of this space, it was a shame there was only seating for 5 people on their balcony.  There was more than enough space for a few more loungers, or even a bigger dining table with more chairs.  

I took a peek inside because I wanted to see my parents’ cabin.  It was a Penthouse Suite, which was the second largest cabin on the ship (only the Sky Suite was bigger).  This was by far the largest cabin I have ever seen on a cruise ship!  There was a large living room with a full-sized couch, a desk, and a separate counter and shelves near the minifridge.

Entering into the bedroom, there were 2 large closets with doors.  I know some people like the open closets in the regular cabins, but I really wish they had doors like this to hide all the clutter.

Continuing into the bedroom, there was a large vanity desk area, and the nightstands had 3 drawers (instead of 2 drawers plus a shelf like in our cabin).

Their bathroom was enormous, with one sink, a large stall shower, and a large garden bathtub in one room, and a toilet and second sink in a separate room.

I stepped back outside onto the balcony to watch as we sailed away from Port Everglades.

The boys came back from swimming around that time to take showers and get changed for dinner.  The group decided we should change out of the matching t-shirts and all dress a little nicer for our first dinner together in the dining room.  After we were dressed, I took one more peak outside and was greeted with this beautiful sunset.

For those unfamiliar, there are 3 dining rooms on the ship.  The Santorini dining room has traditional dining with an early 5pm seating and a late 7:30pm seating.  We considered that, but the group thought 5pm was too early to be ready for dinner on port days, and we all agreed 7:30pm was way too late to eat dinner, especially with 3 kids in our group.  The Capri dining room was for non-reservation walk-ups, where you would arrive whenever you wanted to eat and be seated when a table was available.  With our large group, we feared that would leave us waiting for a table every night, so that was immediately vetoed.  That left us with the Amalfi dining room, where you could make reservations in advance for whatever time you wanted.  The reservations were offered in 20 minute increments starting at 5pm, so we all discussed it and agreed that 5:40pm would be ideal.  The other advantage to the Amalfi dining room was that it was located at the aft of the ship, so it was very close to all of our cabins and we could avoid walking up to the mid-ship dining room every night.

A few months before the cruise, I tried to make dinner reservations for our group of 9 using the app, but there was no availability at all for any time of day.  You don’t gain access to that feature until you make the final payment for the cruise, so this was in mid-September, still 3 months in advance.  I emailed our travel agent and she said there was nothing she could do on her end, but recommended we call Princess’ shoreside dining line for assistance.  I spoke with an agent who was extremely helpful, but she explained that all the tables for large parties were already booked by people who paid off their final payment before us.  In the end, she was able to make us a reservation for 5:20pm every night of the cruise in the Amalfi aft dining room.  That was slightly earlier than we initially hoped for, but it was better than nothing!  After she confirmed our reservation, I asked if there was any way to make our reservation at 6pm for New Year’s Eve?  My excursion wasn’t scheduled to end until 4:30pm, and then I’d still have to walk back to the ship, get up to my cabin, shower and wash my hair (since we’d be swimming in the ocean on that excursion), and get ready for a fancy New Year’s Eve on the ship.  There was absolutely no way I could do that in less than an hour (plus Jason would need time to get ready too!), so I begged her to find us something later just for that one day.  She said that she could accommodate us for a 6pm reservation that night, so that was a huge relief.  When I looked in my app, I was able to see the dinner reservations for each night of the cruise for all 9 people in our party.  My one mistake was that I did not think to take a screenshot of the reservations, so I didn’t have any proof of this conversation.  

Once we were onboard, I looked in the app and saw that our dinner reservations were for 8 people, not 9.  That’s not good!  My mom made some phone calls and made use of the special suites concierge services and found out that they changed us to a table for 8, intending to just squeeze in a 9th chair.  Apparently they didn’t have any real tables for 9, and all the tables for 10 were already booked.  This was less than ideal, but okay fine, we would make it work, even if it meant constantly kicking each other under the table and not being able to pull in our chairs all the way.  

All 9 of us met up outside the aft elevators on deck 6 and approached the hostess stand together.  The hostess made a big deal about us needing to link our cabins together to ensure we were always seated together as a group.  I’m not really sure what that was all about since we could see the reservation with all of our different cabins in our apps, but we spoke to another person at the hostess desk and she linked the reservations.  This lady was quite rude, and I honestly wish I had written down her name to comment about it in the post-cruise survey.  She kept blaming me for doing the reservations incorrectly and saying “well YOU didn’t link your cabins” and “YOU were supposed to do that so we could find you a table.”  Ummm, pardon me but I didn’t actually do anything!  I called the shoreshide dining line and that lady did all of the work on her end to book our reservations!  If you want to have an attitude with anyone, have it with that lady from your own company!  Once that was resolved, we were escorted to our table and told we could sit here at 5:20pm every night of the cruise and have the same waiters every night.  Or would we??  **Foreshadowing**

Anyway, back to tonight’s dinner…

Once we were all seated at our table, our suspicions proved true.  A table for 8 is definitely a tight squeeze with 9 chairs.  The chairs are wide, so we weren’t able to pull them all the way in to the table because the front corners were hitting the next chair over.  With no other choice, we made it work.  On the bright side, we had a wonderful waiter team at this table.  Our head waiter was Bernardo from Peru, and he was always so accommodating, especially in bringing Ian whatever he wanted for dinner, even if it wasn’t on the kids menu.  Isaac was in charge of our drinks, and he was always quick to take our orders and then offer refills as needed throughout the meal.  Tonight, I ordered a glass of sauvignon blanc for me and a cup of milk for Ian.  Ian prefers plain milk, and my nephew prefers chocolate milk, so each subsequent night, Isaac brought the boys their preferred cups of milk without us even asking.

For my appetizer, I ordered the deep-fried brie bites with cranberry jam.  It was delicious and I would have eaten that every night if given the choice!

Technically, my parents should have been eating their dinners in the section of the Capri dining room reserved for suites, and they should have had access to a special menu.  We later learned that this “special menu” was actually just one special entree in addition to the same menu everyone else was served that night.  They knew when booking their cabin that the other 3 cabins in our group were not suites, so if they wanted to eat dinner with the whole family, they would have to eat in the main dining room.  Once we got onboard, they spoke with the concierge desk and arranged to have access to the special suites entree and it would be served to them in the Amalfi dining room.  That was a great compromise, and my parents were happy the staff were so willing to accommodate them.

Tonight’s suites entree was a seafood risotto dish.  My dad wanted to order it for himself, but my mom opted for something else.  When they explained that to the manager, he said that he was able to bring two of the risotto entrees to our table, even if my mom was not going to be the second person to eat it (Hint, hint.  Nudge, nudge.  He was discretely encouraging them to share with someone else in the group.).  My dad asked if any of the rest of us wanted it and I jumped on it without blinking an eye!  To be fair, Jason and my SIL don’t eat shellfish, and my brother wasn’t interested, so it’s not like I had to battle them for the privilege.  

When the waiter placed my dish in front of me, I took it at face value.  It looked like a typical cruise ship entree portion size as I assumed it was served on a plate.  Imagine my surprise (and my dad’s surprise too!) when we realized it was a deep bowl!  As we continued eating, it felt like the dish just kept getting deeper and deeper, and it was stuffed with large scallops, shrimp, mussels, clams and calamari mixed in with the cheesy risotto.  There was sooooo much seafood stuffed in that bowl that we joked there must have been a hole at the bottom and a chef sitting under our table to refill it.  It was by far the best entree I had the entire cruise, and made me question why we don’t book our cruises in suites!  (We’ll just ignore the obvious reason… we can’t afford suites, and cheaper cabins mean we get to take more cruises.)

Happy faces with full bellies

After that ginormous entree, I wasn’t hungry at all for dessert, but I ordered the raspberry sorbet for a little something sweet.

Ian ordered vanilla ice cream from the kid’s menu for his dessert, and the waiter topped it with rainbow sprinkles.  When he finished his ice cream, he proceeded to eat all the sprinkles from the bottom of the bowl… silly kid!

After dinner, everyone else in our group went to the 7pm show in the theater, but Ian was cranky after skipping his nap and going to bed so late last night, so we decided to bring him back to the cabin to put him to bed.  While we waited for him to fall asleep, we ordered a few drinks to the cabin through the room service app.  Last year, we were able to order literally any drink offered on the ship, but this year, there was a restricted list of options.  After we placed our order, the drinks were delivered within 20 minutes.  Jason ordered a martini, and I ordered an aperol spritz (which was mixed properly this time!)

After 30 minutes, Ian was still fighting his sleep, so Jason and I decided to sit out in the hallway to limit Ian’s distractions.  I used this time to decorate the door to our cabin with New Year’s Eve decorations.  Last year, I made these decorations by gluing magnets to the back, so I had stored them away knowing I’d reuse them this year too.

I also brought these decorations that I made on my Cricut.  I designed them to be reusable for all my cruises, so the custom wording comes off and can be replaced for each cruise.  I decided to put them on the door to my parents’ cabin.  Because of the location of our cabin, we were at the very end of the hallway and no one would ever see our decorations.  Even the people with aft-facing cabins wouldn’t see our door because the hallway turned before our cabin.  The door to my parents’ suite was located at the end of the long hallway that spanned the whole length of the ship.  It had literally zero privacy and could be seen from at least the hall outside the mid-ship elevators, maybe even further if you had excellent vision.  By placing these brightly colored decorations on their door, Ian could easily spot it from far away, so he always knew where to go to get back to our cabin.  He knew that door was for Mimi and Pop, and the one with the New Year’s Eve decor was our cabin, but it was very helpful that we could see it from so far away (even though it meant my parents had less privacy with their door open.)

So remember how I switched our original booking from the aft-facing cabin to the last cabin on the port side of the ship?  As it turned out, this was a blessing in disguise.  Because the turn off to access the aft-facing cabins happened before reaching our cabin door, we ended up with our own little alcove.  We often left our deadbolt out to hold the door open so we could go back and forth between our cabin and my parents’ cabin without the loud noise of opening and closing our cabin door.  There was no way to close the cabin door quietly from the outside.  From the inside, you could turn down the handle and slowly push the door closed and it didn’t make much noise.  From the hallway side, you literally had to slam the door to make it shut all the way, and that would have woken Ian when he was asleep.  We felt fairly safe leaving the deadbolt out to hold the door open when we were sitting in my parents’ cabin since no one would ever see it.  This was our little nook, with our cabin on the right and my parents’ suite on the left…

Anyway, back to that evening… Jason and I ended up sitting on the floor of the hallway so we could chat while waiting for Ian to fall asleep.  Nearly 2 hours later, he was STILL fighting his bedtime, and he kept coming out into the hallway.

By then, it was 8:45pm and we were getting frustrated with him for not going to sleep.  Had we known he’d fight his bedtime like this, we would have put him in camp after dinner and gotten to enjoy the entertainment around the ship.  Around that time, my mom texted to see what we were up to.  When we told her, she offered to come back to the cabin to watch Ian so we could catch the 9pm show.  She needed to finish unpacking anyway, so it wasn’t a problem for her.  She said the whole group loved the show and she thought we would enjoy it, so we took her up on her offer.

My parents got back to their cabin a few minutes later, and we left to walk alllll the way forward to the theater.  We grabbed two seats at the back of the theater, and realized we hadn’t missed anything from the show because the cruise director, Tee, was still talking.  We actually took advantage of this several times during the cruise because we realized Tee talks for a few minutes before all of the shows.  The one exception was the 3 nights they had the big production cast shows, which all started promptly at 7pm and 9pm.  Tee had to introduce the specialty acts that came onboard throughout the cruise, which gave us a buffer to get to the theater on time.  More on that when we get to those nights of the cruise.

We were sitting really far back in the theater, so my apologies that these aren’t the best quality photos.  Tonight’s show was called Duo Gravity, and this was the description from the Patter:

Experience an unforgettable evening of electrifying music, awe-inspiring circus artistry, and lighthearted comedy.  This high-energy show seamlessly blends the timeless beats of rock ’n’ roll and the catchy rhythms of pop with breathtaking stunts.

After seeing the show, especially when compared to the description from the Patter, both Jason and I were underwhelmed.  We enjoyed it and were glad we had the opportunity to see it rather than spending the hour fighting with Ian, but we honestly thought it was an amateur performance.  Maybe we are just jaded from shows we’ve seen on other ships, or from watching similar acts every summer on America’s Got Talent, but we just were not that impressed with their stunts.

They started out with a juggling act…

Then, they performed a few stunts where the man lifted the woman…

Next, they picked a woman from the audience and asked her to come on stage to be their assistant with juggling.  

Then, they found two men from the audience and had them help with a unicycle act.  The funniest part of this was that the man on the left was the 16-year-old son of the man sitting next to us at the back of the theater!  We were literally in the last row of the theater, so it was funny that his son was sitting up in the front row, and watching his reaction to his son on stage was better than the act itself!

After that, the woman came back out and did some acrobatics with LED hula hoops.  

We weren’t all that impressed by her stunts, but I loved how some of my photos turned out!  The theater was dark, so the phone defaulted to a long-exposure shot.  In that time, her hula hoops moved, so the camera captured that movement, creating some really cool effects…

At the end of the show, the pair performed some more acrobatic stunts together, but this time, the woman did all the heavy lifting.  This was by far the most impressive part of the entire show, and it was really incredible to see her strength.  On America’s Got Talent, the judges are always looking for something they’ve never seen before.  I can say that in all of my prior cruises, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman do stunts like this!

That part alone made it worth us sitting through the whole show!  It ended at 10pm, at which point Jason and I went back to our cabin to relieve my parents from their babysitting duty.  My mom said Ian fell asleep within 5 minutes of us leaving… that kid is so manipulative with us, but he knows his Mimi means business!  

Each night of the cruise, Jason and I tallied up the drinks we each ordered that day.  It was nice being able to see our total in the app to make sure we never went over our 15 drinks limit.  There were many days when Jason ordered 12 or 14 drinks but I only had 1 or 2 on my account because the waiters always seemed to bill the drinks to Jason, even if we requested them to put it under my name.  We were careful to monitor it throughout the day and sometimes I would go order both drinks without Jason being nearby to ensure it went on my account.

Today’s drinks total:  21

Up next: Beach day at Princess Cay

Monday, December 22, 2025 ~ Drive to Port St. Lucie

We decided not to set an alarm this morning after such a long day yesterday, but I naturally woke up at 7:30am.  I quietly got dressed and ready for the day, then went downstairs to the breakfast room to check out our options.  I apologize that I forgot to take photos, but the space was large enough for the size of the hotel (a nice change from so many other hotels where I have stayed when there aren’t enough tables and people are tripping over each other trying to get their food and find a place to eat.)  They had scrambled eggs, sausage, cereal, fruit, a fridge with yogurt and milk, and my personal favorite: a make-your-own waffles station.  I made myself a waffle and gathered a few other things, then found myself a seat to eat my breakfast.  When I finished, I made a waffle for Ian and brought it back up to the room.  By the time I got back, he was awake, so I helped him get dressed and eat his waffle while Jason got ready and went downstairs for his own breakfast.  

By the time Jason came back to the room, I had finished packing up our bags and we were ready to check out of the hotel.  We left around 9am to drive down to my parents’ house in Port St. Lucie.  It was around a 2 hour drive, but we split it up by stopping at Costco in Melbourne to give Ian a chance to go potty and to pick up some necessary supplies (who are we kidding… we picked up a case of the Sam Adams seasonal beers).  We tried to get in and out as fast as possible, but the store was a madhouse with people doing last-minute Christmas shopping, so we were there for around 45 minutes from start to finish.  After that, we finished up the drive to my parents’ house, and pulled into their driveway at 11:45am.  

Jason planned to work on Monday and Tuesday this week.  His company is based in Seattle, and we live in Phoenix, so he always works remote.  What difference does it make to his company if he’s sitting in his office in our house or in the guest room at my parents’ house?  It worked out really well because with the time difference, his work day started at 9am Pacific time, which is noon Eastern time.  That gave us all morning to drive to Port St. Lucie, and he had just enough time to eat a quick lunch before hopping on his first meeting of the day at noon.

I think this is where I will stop telling the minute-by-minute story of our time in Port St. Lucie.  We spent a lot of time hanging out on my parents’ lanai, exploring their neighborhood, and giving Ian quality time with his grandparents.  Ian loved playing on the nearby playground, and watching a family of Sandhill Cranes roaming across the grass.

On Tuesday afternoon, we spent some time swimming in the pool at my parents’ community center.

On Wednesday, Jason, Ian and I drove down to Boca to have lunch with Jason’s 95-year-old uncle.  

On Friday, we spent the day with my parents in Jensen Beach, visiting the Children’s Museum of the Treasure Coast and having dinner on the water at Conchy Joe’s Seafood.  Ian had so much fun sending scarves up the wind tunnel and playing the xylophone in the outdoor music garden.

Other than that, we just spent a lot of time relaxing, chatting, and enjoying the calm before the cruise.  After we came home from dinner on Friday night, we did a load of laundry and packed up some of the items we wouldn’t need in the morning so we could get on the road that much faster for the drive down to Ft. Lauderdale.

Up next:  Embarkation Day!!

Sunday, December 21, 2025 ~ Fly to Florida

I am going to approach this review slightly differently from my typical reviews.  Usually, I would cover any pre-cruise antics in detail, as that is part of our vacation and I like to cover everything we did between leaving from and returning to our house.  This time around, things were a little different because we flew out to Florida a week before the cruise to spend extra time with my parents.  I doubt anyone wants to read a play by play of that week, so instead, I will cover today as our travel day out to Florida, then I will skip ahead to Saturday for embarkation day.  Maybe I’ll throw in a quick review of our week visiting my parents if I think of something worth sharing.

I woke up to my alarm going off at 5:30am.  That was a less-than-ideal start to my day, but I needed time to get showered and dressed before Ian woke up, and I was able to justify it by saying it was 7:30am in Florida!  Jason was in the middle of training for a race he is running at the end of January, so he went for an early long run while we were still at home.  That meant I was on my own to get Ian dressed and fed, and to finish packing all the last minute items into our luggage.  Once I was done with that, I took Ian to pick up Subway sandwiches for lunch for the plane.  I found a coupon code where we could get 2 foot longs for $13, so that was worth the extra effort on the busy morning versus paying airport prices for mediocre sandwiches.  Ian is a picky eater so I made him a peanut butter sandwich for the plane when we got home.

When Jason got home from his run, he quickly showered and finished getting ready.  I requested the Uber XL at 10:30am, and it arrived to pick us up 6 minutes later. 

Bye bye, house!  See you in 2 and a half weeks!

There was no traffic on our 30-minute drive to the airport, but we were surprised to see what looked like Air Force One parked at the small private terminal as we drove in.  The plane was just labeled with “United States of America” on the side, so we were not sure exactly which plane it was, but it was still cool to see.

Randomly, our Uber driver’s name was Matthew, which is my brother’s name.  On its own, that’s not too coincidental, but imagine my surprise when the porter working at the curb check counter was named Kevin- Jason’s brother’s name!  We each only have 1 brother, so that was really funny that the two men who helped us get to the airport shared their names.  PHX charges $3.50 per bag to check your luggage at the curb, but we thought that was well worth the price to not have to juggle the two 48-pound bags inside the terminal with our carry-on bags too.

There was literally no one at all in line when we arrived at security.  We expected that we would be able to leave our shoes on as that was the procedure when we flew to Seattle over the summer too, but we were pleasantly surprised that we were also allowed to leave everything in our bags, including the 3-1-1 bag of liquids, and our tablets.  From the time we were dropped off by our Uber to the time we were through TSA took only 15 minutes, but then we had a super long walk to our gate.  No worries though because we arrived at the airport early and had plenty of time to spare!

**0007

I sat with our bags at the gate while Jason took Ian to walk around and watch the planes taking off and landing.  It was a relief to see that our plane arrived at the gate on time when the prior flight landed, so we assumed our flight would leave on time.  Unfortunately, it did not play out that way, and we didn’t start boarding until 30 minutes after we were scheduled to start.  Jason’s frequent work trips earned him A-List status on Southwest, so we had boarding number A31-A33.  The in-bound plane came from Baltimore, so it was highly unlikely there were any through passengers (I know Southwest is notorious for connecting you in bizarre cities, but there was no way someone would fly from Baltimore to Phoenix to get to Orlando!).  We expected to see 30 people on the plane when we boarded, but at first glance, it looked like way more people were on the plane.  There were people sitting in every row halfway back through the plane!  Where did all of these people come from?!  When we looked closer, we noticed that the first 3 rows on both sides of the plane were filled with people wearing business suits.  Then we looked a little closer and noticed they all had a curly-wired ear piece in one ear… they were Secret Service agents!  What on earth were they doing flying on our Southwest flight from Phoenix to Orlando?!  We realized they must have boarded directly onto the plane from the tarmac, and not through the terminal like everyone else, so that’s why there were way more than 30 people on the plane before us, and that’s also likely why we were so delayed.

We ended up sitting in row 12 as that was the first row of 3 unoccupied seats that we could find.  The rest of the passengers boarded quickly, and the plane finally departed 30 minutes late.  We had clear skies as we flew out of Phoenix…

I even spotted the famous fountain in Fountain Hills as it was going off when we passed it!  This isn’t a great quality photo as I had to zoom in all the way on my phone, but you can see it in the middle of the lake at the center of the photo…

The rest of our flight was uneventful, which I suppose is the best kind of flight you can have.  Ian refused to nap so he watched movies on his phone, Jason read on his Kindle, and I watched a movie I had downloaded to my Netflix app on my iPad.  We landed in Orlando at 7:45pm, 35 minutes late.  While we were waiting to get off the plane, we started talking to the lady in the row behind us.  She was an off-duty Southwest flight attendant and she said Donald Trump, Jr. was on our flight!!  Wait, what?!  We definitely didn’t see him when we boarded, but we figured out that he must have been the last person to board the plane after everyone else was seated, and he sat between the Secret Service agents in the front row, so no one knew he was there.  When we landed, there were 6 or 7 black SUVs waiting at our gate, and we saw them drive away with their lights on.

We never saw him get off the plane, so he must have gotten off before the pilot took off the seatbelt sign so no one would see him.  Jason and I are still confused as to why Donald Trump, Jr. flew on Southwest.  I’m not surprised he flew on a commercial plane, but I would have thought he’d fly on an airline that at least had a first class or business section.  Maybe he was in the same predicament as us in not finding any other direct flights between Phoenix and Orlando that flew at convenient times of day!  Turning Point USA had a huge conference in Phoenix the week before our flight, so we assumed he must have been at the conference and that’s why he was in Phoenix.  So I guess now we can check off a quasi-sighting of a celebrity from our vacation to-do list!  We didn’t see him, but we know he was there, so that counts for something, right?!

We eventually made our way off the plane and down to baggage claim.  It took about 20 minutes for our checked bags to come out on the carousel after we arrived down there, so thank goodness for AirTags because at least I knew they were nearby and not forgotten in Phoenix.

Next, we took the elevator down to the car rental agencies and were greeted with a crazy long line at the Budget counter.  Jason sat with Ian on a nearby couch while I waited in line for 25 minutes for it to be my turn.  I had rented a full-size sedan, but the agent upgraded us to an SUV.  He asked if we wanted the toll pass, but I said no because we didn’t think we would need it and planned to just avoid toll roads to save some money.  The agent told me the gas tank was full and we should return the car with a full tank, or else we could pay $3 per gallon for them to fill it for us.  I said that we would return the car with a full tank.  I’m going to give you a little spoiler alert and flash forward to after we returned home from our vacation 2.5 weeks later, when I was reading all the emails I missed, and I found the receipt from when we dropped off the car in Ft. Lauderdale.  We were charged $150 more than the price I was originally quoted.  I called Budget to inquire about the discrepancy, and they said we were charged for the toll pass.  I explained that I definitely refused that service and we did not incur any tolls while we had the rental car, and after some back and forth, the lady on the phone removed the charge.  That only accounted for $79, so I asked her to review our receipt again because it was still higher than I expected.  She said we were charged a fee for filling the tank upon return, but I said we returned it full and could provide a receipt from the gas station if needed.  She said we were not charged for any gallons of gas, but that the charge was to enroll us in the program to give us the option for them to fill our tank.  Ummm, what?!  You charged me $70 for the option to put gas in the car, even if it was returned with a full tank??  I told her that I did not request to be enrolled in that service (I didn’t even know there was a fee for that service as the original agent just said we’d pay $3 per gallon for them to fill us up), and that I had told the original agent we planned to return the car with a full tank.  After a little more back and forth, the lady on the phone agreed to remove that charge, and the final total was now the same as our original quote.  The whole thing felt like such a scam, and had I not looked at my final receipt I would have been charged that extra $150.  

Anyway, back to the Orlando airport… We followed the directions into the parking garage where we found our rental SUV parked in our assigned spot.  We traveled with our little portable car seat for Ian, but the Budget agent said we were welcome to use one of their car seats if we preferred.  They had a large shed inside the parking garage with infant bucket seats, high-back booster seats, and big kid booster seats.  They were all individually wrapped in plastic as if they had been cleaned before being stored in the shed, so we took a high-backed booster seat for Ian, since that would definitely be more comfortable for him with all the driving we had planned for the week.  I installed Ian’s car seat while Jason loaded all of our luggage in the trunk, and we finally pulled out of the airport garage at 9:15pm local time.

By then, we were all starving and in desperate need of dinner.  In hindsight, we should have just found something to eat in the terminal when we first got off the plane.  We probably could have finished eating and gotten down to baggage claim just as our bags arrived, and it would have been a better use of our time.  While I waited in line for the rental car, I spent my time Googling what restaurants were nearby and still open this late on a Sunday night.  We didn’t want to spend the time at a sit-down restaurant, so we settled on Wendy’s as it was about 10 minutes from the airport and appeared to be our closest option.  We needed something fast, and knew Ian would be happy with chicken nuggets.  We ended up sharing a 20-piece box of nuggets between the 3 of us, plus Jason ordered himself a cheeseburger since he needed more calories after his long run this morning.  I was so exhausted that I completely forgot to take photos, but it was as you would expect chicken nuggets from Wendy’s to look, so I don’t think a photo would add much value anyway!

When we finished eating, we piled back in the car and drove to our hotel.  When I knew we needed to spend the night in Orlando, I booked us a hotel that was as close as possible to the airport.  In hindsight, that wasn’t quite necessary because we had to drive 10 minutes away from the airport to find a place for dinner… oops!  I searched on Booking.com and found a suite at the Country Inn and Suites by Radisson for $113 including taxes.  It had a separate bedroom for Jason and myself, and a pull out couch in the living room for Ian, at the price included breakfast in the morning.  We paid $10 additional for onsite parking, but I thought that was still a great rate.

The room was very nice and clean, and despite its close distance to the airport, it was very quiet.

This was the living room.  With Ian being so small, we just laid a sheet down across the seats on the couch and let him sleep there instead of pulling out the couch.  By the time he went to bed, he was so tired he probably could have slept on the coffee table!

This was our room with a king-sized bed, dresser, TV, and there was also a closet but I didn’t take a photo of it.

There was a kitchenette, with a minifridge, microwave, coffee maker, and ice bucket.

The bathroom was spacious and clean, and the room was plenty big enough for our needs considering we only spent 12 hours there.

By the time we got settled in the hotel and unpacked what we needed for the night, we didn’t get Ian to bed until around 11pm.  That was 9pm in Arizona, and he usually goes to bed at 7pm, so it was a long day.  Jason and I went to bed shortly after that as we were both exhausted too.

Flights

Why is it so hard to find a direct flight from Phoenix to Southeast Florida?!  I understand that most people traveling to/from Phoenix and Florida are coming from the northeast or midwest, but that doesn’t mean people who live in Phoenix never want to go to Florida.  My parents have been struggling with this lack of flight options for years.  In fact, one year, they opted to take a cruise from Florida, through the Panama Canal, ending in Los Angeles, just so they could fly from LAX to PHX because that was easier than finding a direct flight from their house in Florida.  Crazy!  This is why we have never been to visit my parents at their house in Florida… it’s just too hard to get there!  Well, booking this cruise meant we had no choice but to find a flight from Phoenix to Florida.  My parents’ house is located about 2 hours from the Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale airports, and about 2.5 hours from the Miami airport.  The good news is that this gave us some flexibility because none of the airports were particularly convenient.  We also had some flexibility in the dates we flew out to Florida.  Ian’s last day of school was Friday, December 19, so we were okay flying anytime after that, especially since staying at my parents’ house meant we wouldn’t need to worry about a hotel.  We were happy to have a few extra days to visit with them in Florida before the cruise if the flights allowed for that, but we were also okay waiting until mid-week if that meant a significant savings on airfare.  We were far less flexible about our return flight.  Because the cruise ended on Tuesday, Jason and I would have to miss 2 days of work that week, and Ian would miss his first 2 days back at school after winter break.  While missing 1 additional day of Pre-K was unlikely to impact Ian’s admission to college, we wanted to make it work with a flight home the day we disembarked the ship as opposed to staying somewhere overnight and flying home on Wednesday.

After extensive research, there were only 3 airlines offering direct flights: JetBlue in/out of Fort Lauderdale, American Airlines in/out of Miami, and Southwest in/out of Orlando.  Jason usually flies with Southwest for his work trips, so he had tons of points available to book these flights.  Our original plan for our Alaska cruise last summer was to fly on Southwest, but then it turned out the flight times were horrible so we ended up flying with Alaska Airlines, and those Southwest points from his work trips just continued to accrue.  It wouldn’t work to fly home from Orlando on the day we got off the ship down in Fort Lauderdale, but it was definitely possible to fly out to Orlando at the start of the trip.  Unfortunately, Southwest is very slow at releasing their flight schedules, so while we could have booked flights on the other airlines in January, we had to wait until the very end of March to book with Southwest.  In the meantime, I did a mock booking for PHX to MCO on Sunday, October 26, since that was the latest Sunday on the previous schedule, and there was a direct flight at 9:30am for 24,000 points.  That was perfect, so I just hoped that they offered a similar flight when they finally opened up bookings for December.

I woke up early on the day when they finally released the next block of flights, knowing that this is a holiday week and the cheapest tickets will sell out quickly.  Imagine my dismay when the morning flight on December 21 was scheduled for 6:05am!!  Seriously?!  What happened to my perfectly-timed 9:30am flight?!  And to make matters worse, they were charging 42,000 points per ticket!  We always knew it was possible that the Sunday ticket would be crazy expensive, so our alternative was to fly on Wednesday, December 24, assuming a mid-week Christmas Eve flight would be significantly cheaper.  While it was cheaper at 35,000 points per ticket, it wasn’t that drastic of a difference where it made sense to lose 3 days of our vacation.  I waited for Jason to wake up so we could discuss a Plan B because no matter which day we flew, there was no way we would take a flight at 6am.

One alternative that was doable, although not ideal, was we could take a 1:25pm direct flight which landed in Orlando at 7:25pm.  The issue was that my parents live nearly 2 hours from the Orlando Airport, so by the time we got off the plane, waited for our checked luggage, picked up the rental car, grabbed dinner somewhere, and drove 2 hours to their house, we wouldn’t arrive until very late at night.  We didn’t love the idea of taking that long drive in the dark so late at night, plus that would totally mess up Ian’s sleep schedule and we didn’t want to start off our trip like that.  The only way that flight would work was if we stayed overnight in Orlando.  We could pick up the rental car and stay at a hotel near the airport, and then drive down to my parents’ house on Monday morning.  The idea of having to pack/unpack for the extra night was annoying, but it seemed like our only option at that point.  To add insult to injury, the later flight cost 43,500 points per ticket!  I guess Southwest thought they’d give the crazy early 6am flight a 1500 point discount?  Luckily/Surprisingly, Jason had enough points in his Southwest account to cover all 3 of our tickets.  It drove him crazy to blow his whole balance on just 1 flight, but considering how rarely we have an opportunity to fly on Southwest, what else was he going to spend those points on?

While it made the most sense to fly with Southwest for the outbound flight to use up the points that were burning a hole in Jason’s account, we would need to fly home from an airport closer to Port Everglades, which meant not on Southwest.  Jetblue had one daily direct flight from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix, which would have been perfect considering how close Port Everglades is to FLL, but it departed at 7:40am so obviously we wouldn’t make it on time after disembarking the ship.  No other airline flies direct from FLL to PHX, so that left us with American Airlines out of Miami.  When I first looked at the flights in January, there was a 1:39pm flight for $236 per ticket.  I am still kicking myself that I didn’t just buy the ticket right there and then, because when I looked again the next day, the price jumped to $472 per ticket!  I tried checking in a different browser in case they saved my cookies, and I even tried checking on Jason’s computer, but the price remained that high.  I couldn’t justify paying an extra $750 for the 3 tickets, so I held off, hoping to find a better flight.  Unfortunately, that flight was literally the only direct flight on any airline from any Florida airport on that Tuesday which departed late enough to get to the airport on time after getting off the ship.  I considered taking a connecting flight, but since we had to book something that left in the afternoon, and we would want enough time between the flights to ensure we didn’t miss our connection, the flights all landed in Phoenix very late at night.  That 1:39pm flight was really our only option, so after 2 months of checking the price and not seeing any change, I checked again the day we booked our outbound Southwest flights and saw that the price dropped to $370 per ticket.  I immediately booked the flight.  It was definitely more than I wanted to spend on a one way ticket, especially considering we were flying on the Tuesday after most people go back to school/work, so it was long enough after peak holiday travel that the flights shouldn’t be that inflated.  At a certain point, I just had to accept it and buy the tickets.

Itinerary

This cruise was a 10-night Southern Caribbean itinerary, including 6 port days.  I will get into the details of our planning and what we did each day when I get to that day of the review, but for now, here is an overview of our itinerary:

Sunday 12/21 – Fly to Orlando

Monday 12/22 – Friday 12/26 – Stay with my parents in Port St. Lucie

Saturday 12/27 – Drive to Ft. Lauderdale for Embarkation Day

Sunday 12/28 – beach day at Princess Cays

Monday 12/29 – Sea Day

Tuesday 12/30 – SNUBA at CoralWorld in St. Thomas

Wednesday 12/31 – Champagne Reef, Titou Gorge, Trafalgar Falls, and Hot Springs tour in Dominica

Thursday 1/1 – Harrison’s Cave and Wildlife Reserve tour in Barbados

Friday 1/2 – Rum Factory and Les Salines Beach tour in Martinique

Saturday 1/3 – Sting Ray City in Antigua

Sunday 1/4 – Sea Day

Monday 1/5 – Sea Day

Tuesday 1/6 – Disembarkation and fly home

Intro

Hi everyone!  My name is Dana, and I just returned home from a 10-night New Years cruise on the Enchanted Princess (December 27, 2025 to January 6, 2026 sailing). As you can see from my cruise history listed below in my signature, I have taken many cruises over the last 15+ years, but this cruise was very different from my norm because we cruised with my parents, brother, sister in law, niece, and nephew!  Our little party of 3 was now a party of 9, so that drastically changed a lot of details about this cruise.  I always write a detailed photo review when I return home from my cruises, with a journal-style day-by-day format, so that was one thing about this cruise that was no different!  If you are looking for a short and sweet review, you might want to look elsewhere… I tend to write like I talk, so my reviews are very long and take a few weeks to complete. On the other hand, if you like reading about lots of details, and if you want to see TONS of photos (including all of the daily schedules and menus), this is the review for you!  I do this as much to help others plan their vacations as to give myself a travel log to look back on and remember my wonderful cruise. Please feel free to ask questions and post comments along the way… I welcome your feedback! 

Planning

A few years ago, my parents bought a Snow Bird house on the east coast of Florida, and ever since, they have been asking when we would come out to visit them and see the new house.  Unfortunately, it is really difficult for us to fly there from our home in Phoenix.  There are very few direct flights, and once we land, it is close to a 2 hour drive from either the Orlando or Ft. Lauderdale airport to their house.  Depending on the time of year, we have either a 2 or 3 hour time difference (thanks to Arizona not participating in daylight savings time), so most daytime flights land in the evening on Florida time, and we would still need to rent a car and drive nearly 2 hours to their house.  It just felt so daunting, so I’ve been avoiding making the trip, opting to visit them in New York instead.  That is, until this past summer when they officially sold their house in New York and left us with no choice but to make the trek to Florida if we wanted to visit them.  Selling the New York house was always in the plan, so over the summer in 2024, I committed that we would find a way to travel to their house in Florida for winter break in 2025.  We were already booked on the Discovery Princess cruise for New Years that winter break, and we had cruised on the Carnival Panorama for the prior year’s winter break, so I knew if I didn’t commit to visiting them in Florida well in advance, I’d be tempted to book another cruise out of California for 2025.  

Ian’s school has a 2-week winter break, so that got me thinking… If we are going to schlep all the way to Florida, maybe we should make the journey worth our while and do more than just visit my parents at their new house.  What if we took a cruise from Florida?!  With Ian still being so young and not really liking getting sand on him at the beach, I hadn’t considered a Caribbean cruise for us until this point, but by then, Ian would be 4.5 years old.  Maybe by then, he would like going to the beach?  He would still be too young for a snorkeling or scuba diving excursion, but we could keep it simple and go to the beach each day and let him play in the shallow water.  I mentioned this idea to my mom, and she immediately said, “What if we go too?”  My mom and I actually cruised together through the Mediterranean in 2013, and we still have such great memories from that trip.  Wouldn’t it be nice to create new memories with Ian and his grandparents?  And then my mom suggested that we should also invite my brother and his family.  My parents have always wanted to take a big vacation with both of their children and all of their grandchildren, so perhaps this was the time to make that happen!  After a lot of back and forth between the 3 parties about which itineraries and dates worked best, we finally decided on this 10-night cruise to the Southern Caribbean.  My parents and brother had never cruised with Princess, so that took a bit of convincing on my part (mind you, even I hadn’t cruised on Princess at this point since this was still 5 months before my first Princess cruise on the Discovery!), but we all agreed that it was the right fit for us and started to look at cabin options.

Our original plan was to book 4 cabins side-by-side.  My brother’s family of 4 would be very tight in one cabin, so they wanted 2 cabins, then my parents would be in one cabin, and my family would have our own cabin.  My parents preferred to book a suite so they would have extra space in their cabin in case any of the grandchildren wanted to sleep over.  The aft-wrap penthouse suites were available, but if you look closely at the deck plans, you can see that not all suites are created equal.  The ones on deck 9 have a significantly larger/deeper balcony than the others, even though they were all priced the same.  If there is ever a time to take advantage of a huge balcony, it’s when cruising as a party of 9 through the Caribbean!  With my parents in the corner suite, it made sense for my family to be in a cabin on one side and my brother to be in the 2 cabins on the other side.  We planned to open up all the balconies to make a giant balcony, but then we found out that there is a solid wall between the suite and the aft-facing cabins on that deck.  Funny enough, this does not appear to be an issue on every deck of the ship, but it is on deck 9 and we didn’t want to give up that huge balcony.  That’s okay, we could make that work, even if it meant going into the hallway to go between the cabins.  

Just as we were about to book the cabins, my brother decided that he wanted two connecting cabins so his kids could sleep in one cabin and he and my SIL would sleep in the other cabin.  His kids are 6 and 8 years old, so not quite old enough to be on their own in a separate cabin.  Unfortunately, there are very few balcony cabins on this ship which connect on the inside.  We really wanted to keep everyone together on the same deck, but the only connecting balcony cabins on deck 9 were all the way forward on the ship, so that would be quite a far walk back and forth.  We eventually found a pair of connecting balcony cabins on deck 10 aft, right near the stairs/elevators.  It wasn’t as ideal as if they had just booked the cabins next to the rest of us, but it made more sense for their family.  

Now that my brother’s family wouldn’t be part of our connected string of balconies, I conceded to give up my aft-facing balcony and take the cabin on the port side of my parent’s suite so we could go back and forth between our two balconies.  I wasn’t thrilled about giving up the aft view, and I would never normally book a cabin this far aft on a ship (literally the last cabin on the port side!), but the whole point of this cruise was to be together as a family, so it just made sense to make the switch.  Once we were all happy with our cabin choices, my mom contacted her travel agent and booked the cruise.  That was in September of 2024, so we had a long time to wait and plan out all our details for the trip.

In an effort to break up all the text from this post, please allow me to entertain you with ridiculous AI-generated versions of some photos from our trip…

3D Cartoon from New Year’s Eve

Jason and me as Smurfs on New Year’s Day

3D Cartoon of Ian and me on Princess Cays

South Park version of me and Jason at Silent Disco

Cry Baby version of Ian on the last night of the cruise

Labubu version of me and Ian in the dining room

I set my alarm for 6am this morning because I had a lot to do before we left for the airport and I hoped to get a head start before Ian woke up.  All things considered, I had a pretty decent night of sleep, so at least I felt energized enough to conquer my to-do list.

I got dressed for the day, then finished packing up all of my belongings.  I spent a few minutes making our sandwiches for lunch on the plane, and heard Ian waking up just as I finished.  With Ian awake, I got him dressed, then packed up the rest of his stuff.  Jason was still asleep, so I sent Ian in to wake him up (why should I be the only one up and being productive?!).  The AirBNB had a whole binder of information to answer any question that might come up during our stay.  One of the pages had detailed instructions on the check-out process, so I took a minute to read that over.  They wanted us to strip the beds, put all the linens on the bathroom floor, and turn on the dishwasher.  Simple enough!  Since Ian was done sleeping, I stripped his bed.  When Jason was dressed, I stripped our bed as well.  We all ate breakfast together at the kitchen table, then I loaded the dishwasher and turned it on.  

We did one last sweep of the rental to ensure everything was packed, then Jason carried all of our bags to the curb while I requested a Lyft XL.  Literally one minute later, a Toyota Highlander pulled up in front of the house to take us to the airport.  Our flight wasn’t scheduled to depart until 11:45am, but I wanted to get to the airport early.  I knew there were 3 big ships in Seattle today, with the potential capacity of nearly 10,000 people, so I had a hunch the airport would be a madhouse.

We arrived at the airport at 9am, and sure enough, it was a total zoo!  I am not sure if this is always the case, or if it was just because of the construction happening at the airport, but there was no curbside check-in option for Alaska Airlines.  We decided that Jason and Ian would stand to the side with our carry-on bags, and I would take the 2 big checked bags to the bag drop counter.  I had booked this flight with Ian being my companion on the free companion pass that came with my credit card welcome bonus, and I booked Jason’s ticket separately using points.  I wasn’t sure if Jason was entitled to a free checked bag or not because his flight was not linked to my credit card benefits, so I just claimed the second checked bag was Ian’s so it would definitely be free.  Since Ian does not have a driver’s license (although he could probably benefit from driver’s ed with the number of times he has run over my feet when driving his Little Tikes Cozy Coupe!), he didn’t need to stay with me when I checked in the suitcases.  I wasn’t kidding when I said the airport was a total zoo.  It took me exactly 30 minutes to wait in the bag drop line until it was my turn!  I have never waited so long to drop off my bags!!  It wasn’t even the same area as the ticketing counter.  We walked past that line later and it was several hundred people long!  

After all of those people in the bag check and ticketing counter lines were done, where do you think they went?  To the security line just like us!  So not surprisingly, it was insanely busy by the time we got to security.  It was so busy near the gates used by Alaska Airlines that they told us to walk down the hall to the next security checkpoint where they said the line was shorter.  When we got down there, we found out that the line they were referring to needed an escalator to access it.  Ian was in his stroller, so we couldn’t use the escalator.  Instead, they directed us to use the priority line.  I have lost count of the number of times we have benefited and saved time in long lines because Ian was in his stroller.  I’m really going to miss that perk when he gets a little older and we don’t need the stroller anymore! 

In the priority line, we walked past the dog sniffing for whatever it is those dogs sniff for, and when we got to the actual security line, we were allowed to leave our liquids in our bags.  We got through the security line in 15 minutes, then had to walk another 15 minutes back to the C gates to find the gate for our flight at the very end of the terminal.  We arrived at 9:55am, and had one hour until boarding time to fill our water bottles, use the restrooms, and take Ian to look out the windows and see the planes.  

The plane we were boarding landed and de-planed on time, but that’s when everything stopped.  Apparently, there was a security issue with our flight.  We will never know exactly what happened, but the TSA needed to do a thorough sweep of the plane and look at everyone’s IDs and boarding passes again before we could board the plane.  When they finished their sweep of the plane, they started to let passengers board, checking everyone’s IDs and boarding passes one at a time.  After about 30 people were on the plane, they stopped for 20 minutes (we didn’t know why), then started again, and we finally got on the plane 45 minutes after we were supposed to take off.  I have never seen anything like that before, and Jason suggested maybe someone got past the security checkpoint without showing their ID?  We will never know for sure, but our flight finally took off 1 hour late. 

The flight itself went smoothly.  Ian watched the Paw Patrol movie for the umpteenth time this week, Jason read a book on his Kindle, and I started the daunting process of sorting through the 3000 photos I took over the last 12 days.  We landed safely back in Phoenix at 3:45pm, and proceeded downstairs to baggage claim.  Our first checked bag came out fairly quickly, but the 2nd checked bag was literally the last bag to come out.  When we finally picked it up, we noticed that it had a big dent in the corner.  

These were a brand new set of matching suitcases that I just bought a few weeks before this vacation, so I was really mad.  I opened up the clamshell in the middle of the airport floor, and luckily, I was able to punch the dent back out using leverage from my knee.  The shell wasn’t cracked or I would have filed a complaint with the airline, but the whole bag now has big scratches all over it.  

We rolled all our bags outside to the ride share pick up area, and ordered an Uber XL.  While we waited for it to arrive, we couldn’t help but notice the drastic temperature change from what we had the whole vacation.  Phoenix welcomed us home with a scorching 109 degree day!

The Uber arrived quickly, and I got Ian seated in his car seat while Jason loaded our bags in the trunk.  We live about 20 minutes from the airport.  Ian didn’t nap on the plane so it came as no surprise that he managed to fall asleep in the Uber, 5 minutes before we pulled into our driveway!  We got home around 5pm, unloaded all our bags into the front hall of our house, and started prepping for Ian’s first day of school the next day.   

**The End**

As I have already mentioned, I visited Seattle several times before, and Jason lived there for 6 years before we met, so we had both done all of the traditional tourist attractions around the city.  Seattle has a ton of interesting things to see and do, but it just did not make sense for us to do those things on this trip.  It is fairly easy for us to visit Seattle from Phoenix, so when Ian is older, we will return and take him to all the things we skipped this time around.  

In planning what to do today, I left our options open.  I knew this would be the end of our trip, and this was the longest we have ever been away from home with Ian, so we couldn’t know in advance what kind of mindset we would all be in when we got to this final day.  As it turned out, we were all worn thin, after so many exciting, jam-packed days, what we really needed was something relaxed and low-key.  We decided to just go for a long walk, with a few key spots in mind as a destination.  

We didn’t set an alarm for this morning, but Ian woke us up around 7:30am.  Even without taking a nap the last two days, he stayed consistent with getting 11.5 hours of sleep each night (which is what he sleeps at home too, when he does take his nap).  We had hoped he would sleep in a little later since we weren’t on a strict schedule today, but nope!

We all got dressed, put Ian in his stroller, and headed out in search of something for breakfast.  It didn’t take us long, because we found a Metropolitan Market directly across the street.  This place is similar to Whole Foods, in that it is a large, upscale supermarket with lots of freshly prepared food.

I don’t usually go for this kind of stuff, but when I saw the apple fritter in the pastry display case, I couldn’t resist!  Jason opted for a cherry almond scone, and we picked up a 4-pack of bagels so Ian could eat one now, and we could save the other 3 for breakfast tomorrow.

The market has a large seating area, so we paid for our food and sat down to eat.  While we were eating, this crazy truck drove by and caught my eye.  We were in Seattle during their Seafair Weekend, so these clowns must have been on their way to some kind of parade or event or something.  There were actually all sorts of events going on around town, but it didn’t occur to me in the moment to look up a schedule or find more information.  While we were on the ferry to Bainbridge Island, we saw a bunch of military jets flying overhead, and later realized they were performing in an airshow!  Too bad we didn’t know about it in advance or we might have tried to attend.

Bellies full, we set out to explore the area.  This mural was painted on a wall in the supermarket’s parking lot:

We walked south along First Avenue, towards the Climate Pledge Arena.  At this early hour, no one was around, but it was definitely more crowded here in the evenings before whatever event they were hosting (I think there was a concert here each night we were in town).

We continued walking and noticed this mural on the side of a building.  It turned out that it was a cannabis store owned by Shawn Kemp, a former NBA player who played on several teams including the Seattle SuperSonics.  We didn’t enter the store, but we did enjoy looking at the mural.

When we got to Broad Street, we turned right to walk towards our first destination.  The street was so steep that Jason asked me to walk in front of him because he was afraid if he lost his grip on Ian’s stroller, Ian would go barreling down the hill and he wanted me there to block his path.  Oh my!  We took it very slowly and all made it to the bottom of the hill safe and sound.

Our first destination today was the Olympic Sculpture Park.  This park is part of the Seattle Art Museum, and features several large sculptures.  It is open to the public and is free to explore at your own pace, so we thought this was a great place to bring Ian so he could run around and burn off some energy.

When we entered the park, we walked through the Bill and Melinda Gates Amphitheater.  This is a tiered grassy hill where they host various events, although nothing was going on while we were there at 9:40am.

At the far side of the amphitheater was a sculpture built in 2004 by Richard Serra called “The Wake.”  It features five giant curved pieces of steel, meant to symbolize waves.  They were built using computer imaging and a machine that once made nuclear submarines, so they are also designed to mirror the profile of battleships.

It is hard to gauge the size of these sculptures from my photo, so I made Ian stand in front to compare the height…

The park also features beautiful landscaping, which is divided into 4 separate areas.  The Valley was a forest of evergreen trees surrounding The Wave sculpture.  The Meadow was a grassy hill on either side of Elliot Avenue, which was the perfect place for Ian to run around.  The Shore was located along Elliot Bay, but it was high tide while we were here so we couldn’t visit the tide pools and small beach in that area.  Finally, The Grove ties the park together as it provides a transition from the city to the shore.  I noticed these bright red berries on the trees in this area, but I wasn’t sure what they were so I didn’t try to eat them.  

We continued walking along the path, which went back up the hill so we had another view point of The Wave and the forest in the background.

The next sculpture we saw along the path was created in 2014 by Ginny Ruffner, and called “Mary’s Invitation:  A Place to Regard Beauty.”  It was commissioned by the Seattle Art Museum in memory of Mary Shirley, one of the most passionate supporters and benefactors of the Olympic Sculpture Park.  This bench symbolized an invitation for visitors to linger and enjoy the sweeping views of the park, its artworks, and the scenery of Puget Sound.

If you sat on this bench (which I do not think you are actually supposed to do!), this would be your view.  We had not yet read the placard for that orange sculpture, but from this angle, I thought it looked like the back side of a dog.  We later learned that is not at all what this sculpture is intended to represent, but I guess art is always open to interpretation, right??

The Park had several sculptures dating back to the late 1960’s, but this next sculpture was the oldest piece of art from 1965.  This was Bunyon’s Chess, by Mark di Suvero, and featured crisscrossing steel beams with swinging pieces of wood, paying homage to two of Washington’s oldest industries. 

Next, we approached the front side of the giant orange sculpture (notice the chairs and family standing on the right for sizing perspective).  This was Alexander Calder’ 1971 piece, titled “The Eagle.”  Calder studied mechanical engineering before studying art, so “The Eagle” is architectural in both its construction and scale.  It displays its curving wings, assertive stance, and pointy beak in a form that is weightless, colorful, and abstract.  To be honest, even from the front I thought it looked like a dog, with an upturned pointy tail and a frontwards-protruding snout.  Like I said, art is open to interpretation!

I did want to point out something from this sign.  It mentions that “The Eagle” was a gift of Jon and Mary Shirley… that is the same Mary Shirly for whom the silver bench sculpture was commissioned, so it was interesting to see one of her presumably many gifts to the museum.

As we continued our walk through the park, I also enjoyed seeing the beautiful flowers in bloom.

We got to a point on the trail where we could have continued walking south, which would lead us down the hill and back to Alaskan Way.  Even the safety railing was sculptural, although I didn’t see any signs indicating if it had a name or was a specific piece of art.

Instead, we walked across a bridge over the train tracks, then continued on the path which made a hairpin turn and angled back towards the north.  

Up next, we saw Tony Smith’s sculpture called  “Wandering Rocks.”  This steel piece was composed of cross sections of tetrahedral and octahedral shapes resting on a point, appearing to hover above the ground. 

From this point, we had a perfect line of sight towards Pier 91 and a new pair of cruise ships.  We considered walking north along the Elliot Bay Trail to get a closer look at the ships, but ultimately decided against it because there wasn’t much else to see in that direction and we would still need to double back to this point to get back across the tracks to get back to the AirBNB.  It was hard to read the names of the ships, but I think this was the HAL Eurodam and the Royal Princess.  Funny enough, we saw both of those ships in Ketchikan on Tuesday, so the people getting off today were the same people in port with us earlier in the week.  It is really amazing how many ships sail in/out of Seattle every day.  Even though our cruise ended 2 days ago, I still felt connected to cruising by seeing the other ships throughout the weekend.

From this spot, we also had a view of another sculpture by Mark di Suvero, called Schubert Sonata, showing geometric forms spinning upon a single point as a way to show the possibilities for motion in sculpture.

We walked down the slope of the hill to sea level, where the park meets the Elliot Bay Trail.  When Jason lived in Seattle, he used to meet up with friends to run along this trail every weekend.  He actually thought he might see some of his old running friends while we were here, but then he realized he usually met them much earlier in the morning, so if they were running today, they would be long gone by now as it was 10:15am at this point.  With so much cloud-cover, it was a cool morning and there were still lots of runners and bikers enjoying the trail.  Ian challenged Jason to a race, so I stood with the stroller while the boys burned off some of their energy.

I enjoyed the views over Elliot Bay while I waited for the boys to finish running.

Once that was out of their systems, we continued walking south along the Elliot Bay Trail to see the last few sculptures.  Up next was “Echo,” a gigantic sculpture of a head, made in 2011 by an artist named Jaume Plensa.  It was modeled after the 9-year-old daughter of a restaurant owner near the artist’s studio in Barcelona.  The sculpture’s title references Echo, the mountain nymph from Greek mythology, who offended the goddess Hera.  To punish Echo, Hera deprived the nymph of speech, except for the ability to repeat the last words of another.  In this 46-foot-tall sculpture, Echo listens with her eyes closed, in a state of meditation.  She faces Puget Sound in the direction of Mount Olympus, visible from land and water.  The sculptures in this park were on such a larger-than-life scale that we really needed to stand in the photos to show the perspective.

As we exited the park, we saw one last sculpture within a fountain.  This was called Father and Son, and was created by Louise Bourgeois specifically for the Olympic Sculpture Park.  It depicts a father and son, reaching towards each other with outstretched arms.  The fountain encircles each of them separately, and rises and falls alternating back and forth such that the father and son can never reach each other.

We were now at the northern end of Alaskan Way, so we continued our walk along the waterfront.  We had already walked along the southern part of this area yesterday as we walked from Pike Place Market to the Bainbridge Ferry, so now we wanted to see some of the things along the northern end.

This was the ferry terminal for the Clipper, which offers day trips like whale watching tours and trips to Victoria, Canada.  In the background, you can see a large mural of orca whales swimming in the ocean, painted on the side of the Edgewater Hotel.

I noticed the artist’s name Wyland on the top corner of the mural.  I knew I recognized that name from somewhere, but I couldn’t place it right away.  We continued walking past the hotel towards Pier 66, and as soon as I saw the cruise ship docked there, I knew where I had seen the name Wyland before!

I had to laugh because had there not been an NCL ship docked here today, I’d probably still be wondering why Wyland sounded so familiar to me!

We walked a little further down until we reached the area where passengers were arriving to unload their luggage and board the NCL Bliss.  This seemed like an interesting place for embarkation/debarkation day, especially for a cruise ship that holds over 4000 passengers!  On the one hand, you are smack in the middle of all the action in Seattle, so I can imagine many passengers staying in the nearby hotels to be within walking distance of all the attractions.  On the other hand, as with most touristy areas, there was a lot of traffic, including pedestrians walking along the waterfront, bikers out for some morning exercise, and vehicles driving along Alaskan Way.  It just seemed very chaotic for the passengers trying to unload heavy suitcases from their taxis in the middle of all that.  I was thankful our cruise left from Pier 91, where at least we had a dedicated space when we arrived/departed and the only other people there were also people boarding/leaving the cruise ship.

By now, it was 10:30am and we left the Metropolitan Market at 9am, so we had been walking for an hour and a half.  Even though we had been going at a slow pace, stopping along the way to admire the sculptures and murals, we still had nearly a 2 mile walk to get back to our AirBNB from this point, so we decided to turn around and head back.  We retraced our steps along Alaskan Way until the road turned right and became Broad Street, then hiked back up the hill to First Avenue, turned left, and continued walking all the way back to where we started our morning.  Along the way, we realized that not only did we need to find somewhere to eat lunch today, but we also needed to pick up some supplies to make sandwiches for tomorrow’s flight home.  There was a Subway on our way (directly across the street from Shawn Kemp’s store, actually), but we decided to walk back to Metropolitan Market and find something there.  We saw some fresh baguettes that were about 3 feet long, so we bought one of those and packages of turkey and cheese, and decided to make our own sandwiches for tomorrow’s lunch.  We considered buying a little more to make sandwiches for today too, but as we were walking past the deli counter, Jason saw a freshly carved rotisserie turkey sandwich that he couldn’t resist.  I decided to pick up a Rainbow Roll from the Japanese counter, which I saw the sushi chef just finished making.  Just as we were starting to consider what we could pick up from Ian, we remembered he still had the leftover mac and cheese from the Harbour Public House sitting in the fridge at the AirBNB!  It will surprise no one that when we asked if he wanted us to reheat that for him to eat for lunch, he said yes.  We took all of our groceries back to the AirBNB, which was conveniently just across the street, and enjoyed our lunch at the kitchen table.

After lunch, we all took showers, then the boys napped while I packed.  When I originally packed for this trip back in Phoenix, I purposely packed our clothes for Seattle in separate packing cubes.  That definitely helped keep things organized, but I still needed to repack all of that stuff and reorganize the big checked bags because somehow, they were both over 50 pounds.  When we packed up the cruise ship cabin, I didn’t really pay attention to the weight of the checked bags because it didn’t matter at the time, but now I needed to sort things out so the lighter bulky items were in the checked bags and the smaller, denser, heavier items were back in the carry on bags as we had done to get them here 12 days ago.  That all kept me very busy while the boys napped.

Ian ended up sleeping for over 2 hours, and we had to wake him up at 4:15 to get ready or we would be late for our dinner plans.  Tonight, we had a 5pm dinner reservation to meet up with some of Jason’s old friends from when he lived in Seattle.  We left the AirBNB a little after 4:30 to walk to the restaurant.  I couldn’t resist having a matchy matchy mommy and me moment with Ian…

We had planned to meet Jason’s friends at Hop House, which is a pizza restaurant near the Seattle Center with a large local beer selection.  When we arrived, they said we couldn’t stay because they did not allow minors.  It was one thing when the Alehouse didn’t allow minors yesterday, but this was a normal restaurant!  It never even occurred to us that we needed to check about their age policy.  That was very frustrating because we had spent a lot of time picking a restaurant in a convenient location which had a menu with enough variety to meet everyone’s needs.  The waiter recommended we go across the street to Tom’s Watch Bar because he said they allow minors.  Really?  You are telling me your restaurant does not allow minors but the bar across the street does?!  I left Jason and his friends at Hop House and I took Ian across the street to investigate.  There was no sense in all of us going over there if they also refused to let in a minor.  I pleaded my case to the hostess, and she said it was no problem, children are welcome.  Whew!  I texted Jason and he and his friends walked over to join us.

Tom’s Watch Bar was actually a really fun place.  Their name is not meant to imply that they sell ways to tell the time, but rather that they have tons of TV screens showing all sorts of sporting events.  This place was huge, with 50+ beers on tap, and over 130 TV screens!  The TV nearest our table was showing some weird kind of obstacle course race where contestants climbed up an icy hill, then went under a pole limbo-style.  I had no idea what we were watching, but it was fun, and the restaurant had a great vibe and a huge menu, so everything worked out in the end.

I ordered the Mediterranean Bowl, with lettuce, quinoa, kale, edamame, tomatoes, artichokes, crispy garbanzo beans, smoked feta, kalamata olives, and grilled chicken, with a side of white balsamic dressing.  It was delicious, and felt very healthy compared to all the other food I had been eating on this vacation!

Jason ordered a cheeseburger, and Ian had mac and cheese (…yes, for the 2nd time today, and no, we weren’t about to stop him and risk a total meltdown!)  They both enjoyed their dishes, and it was good to catch up with Jason’s friends who we haven’t seen in nearly a decade. 

After dinner, we made the 10 minute walk back to our AirBNB, and put Ian to bed.  Despite his 2+ hour nap, he fell right asleep, and we could tell he was exhausted not just from today, but from the whole vacation.  We spent some more time packing, then relaxed on the couch to finish off the last of our beers.  Somehow, we managed to walk over 13,000 steps on this day which was meant to be low-key and relaxing, so we gave in to the exhaustion and were both asleep before 10pm.

Up next: flying home to Phoenix, but not without some drama!

I didn’t set an alarm for this morning, but I still woke up by 7am, feeling more refreshed than I had since leaving Phoenix.  A quick check of my sleep graph showed that I got a great night of sleep, which actually surprised me because we sleep in a king-sized bed at home and I was nervous about sleeping in a queen in our AirBNB.  I guess the exhaustion from a week of poor sleep finally got the better of me!

As I was getting ready for the day, I heard Ian was awake in his room.  I went inside to find him sitting up in bed, playing with his duckies.  I guess the pillows did the trick to keep him safe!  Jason woke up a few minutes later, so we all got dressed and left the AirBNB by 8:30am.  We requested an Uber and it was at our front door literally 1 minute later!  We’re not used to such prompt service, as when we request Ubers at home, they usually take 10+ minutes to arrive.  Our AirBNB was in such a popular location in the heart of Seattle, so there was always an Uber nearby when we needed one.

Our first destination today was to visit Jason’s company’s office.  He works for a large company, and while he works remotely from an office in a spare bedroom in our house in Phoenix, the company’s headquarters is located in one of the skyscrapers in downtown Seattle.  He has made several work trips there over the years, and he always talks about the incredible views they have from their 48th floor offices, so we knew we wanted to visit one day while we were in Seattle.  Conveniently, his company all had the day off today (one of the other reasons that traveling this week worked well for us- it was a freebie PTO day for Jason!), so it worked well to stop by this morning because no one would be there trying to do their work.  

We took the elevator all the way up to the 48th floor and were greeted with this amazing view:

We had no need to pay for tickets to go to the top of the Space Needle when we could get this view for free!  Plus, you can’t see the Space Needle in the skyline if you are in it!

The windows wrap around almost the whole building, so we walked around to see views towards the west.

We could even see the new cruise ships docked up at Pier 91 for their turnover day today.

Zooming in, I could see that there were 2 ships docked today: the Celebrity Edge and the RCCL Anthem of the Seas.

We spent about 20 minutes admiring the views and pointing out various landmarks to Ian, then we headed back downstairs.

Our next destination was Pike Place Market (as tempting as it might be to abbreviate, Jason warned me to always call it by its full name, and never add an apostrophe S to Pike!).  I have been here several times before on family vacations as a child and in 2016 with Jason, and of course Jason had been here countless times over the 6 years he lived in Seattle, but neither of us have ever taken a formal tour of the market.  I thought it might be interesting to take a tour so we could learn more of the history of the market and what better way to enjoy a market than with a food tour!?  There are many options of food tours, in various lengths, group sizes, and price points.  I found a company on Viator called Tasty Tours who offered a 10:30am tour 7 days a week, with a maximum of 12 people per tour.  I hoped that meant it would be easier to follow and hear our guide versus some of the larger 40+ person tours.  This tour averaged 4.8 stars from over 250 reviews, so I went ahead and booked tickets for the 3 of us.  Another perk was that Ian’s ticket was free, which was great because as it turned out, he refused to try a single sample the whole time!  I messaged the guide to ask if it made sense to bring Ian’s stroller.  We thought it might be helpful to keep him contained since we expected the market would be crowded during peak tourist season, plus then he could sit in the stroller for all the rest of the walking we had planned today since we wouldn’t have time to go back and forth to the AirBNB to retrieve it.  We got a reply a few days later encouraging us to use the stroller, and saying that he regularly avoids stairs on the tours to make it easier for everyone.  More on this later!

After walking down from Jason’s office, we were still a little early to meet our guide, so we tried to get a family photo.  Ian was in a mood today, despite his full night of sleep, so he wouldn’t smile or cooperate in photos, and this was the best we could get:

Our tour tickets instructed us to meet at The Crumpet Shop at the market at 10:30am.  We arrived at 10:15 and were a bit confused because there are 3 entrances to the Crumpet Shop.  Where exactly were we supposed to meet our guide?  One was just to the right of where we took the photo above, one was on the main street, and a third was in an alley just around the corner from the main street.  There were tons of other tour groups walking around, so it was very busy, but we saw another family with a husband, wife, and two teenaged sons who also looked like they were searching for a tour guide.  I asked if they were also taking the 10:30am tour and they said they were!  Okay, so now we had 7 of the potential 12 people on this tour waiting together, and we hoped that meant that if we were in the wrong spot, at least the guide was unlikely to leave without us.  There is strength in numbers!!

We decided to wait on the sidewalk outside one of the entrances to the Crumpet Shop, and every few minutes, one of us checked around the corner to see if we saw our guide.

At 10:28, someone approached us and said he was “Sonic John” and would be leading the tour for Tasty Tours.  Whew!  So now we knew we were at the right location!  Three other couples approached John to say they were also signed up for this tour.  John said that although he always caps his tours at 12 people, one of those couples called him yesterday asking to book the tour, and since he only had 11 people signed up, he allowed it.  One extra person isn’t a huge deal, but I thought I would mention it because technically one of the selling points for this tour was that it’s a small group with a maximum of 12 people, and John himself made several comments throughout the tour about how we were a big group and it was hard to keep us all together.

Anyway, John started off the tour by handing out stickers for everyone to wear so the vendors in the market would know that we were taking John’s tour.  He also explained that the market is home to over 500 independent businesses, spanning over 9 acres of multi-level buildings.  Every store in the market is the original location for that brand.  It was within the rules if a store wanted to expand and open other locations outside the market if they had already opened their first location here, but stores that already existed elsewhere could not open a store inside the market (ie: you will never see a McDonalds in Pike Place Market).  There is a location of Starbucks inside the market, but it is permitted because that was their original location!

With that background information, we set off to enter the market itself.  Two minutes later, John said we had to walk down a steep flight of stairs to continue on our way.  Ummm, say what?!  Didn’t you just message me a few weeks ago to say that you avoid stairs on your tours and we should bring Ian’s stroller??  We questioned it, but John brushed us off, saying that the building dates back to 1907, before the ADA required buildings to be accessible, and that we should carry the stroller down the stairs.  With that, he took off down the stairs, leading the group as he went.  We tried to coax Ian out of the stroller, but he was still in a bad mood and we could see the group was leaving without us.  Luckily, one of the teenagers from that family we were chatting with offered to help Jason carry the stroller down the stairs.

Unfortunately, that was not the only staircase we encountered on this tour, and we asked that teenager and his brother for help several more times until Ian finally figured out he was being a nuisance and agreed to just get out of the stroller and walk down the stairs so Jason could collapse it and easily carry it on his own.  Strike 1 against John.

It was a little odd that our meeting spot for the tour was in front of a Crumpet Shop, which was bustling with visitors the whole time we waited for John, yet we didn’t get to sample any food from there.  It was literally just a meeting spot.  

Our next stop on the tour was Beechers Cheese Shop.  Another one of the biggest selling points for this tour was that it specifically said we would get to sample the famous Beechers mac and cheese.  Of all the foods listed in the tour description, this was the only one that I knew for sure Ian would enjoy.  Imagine my surprise when John walks us through the store to the very back where they have a bowl of chunks of cheese and toothpicks to try a piece of cheese.  That bowl is free and available to anyone who walks in the store, so what happened to that sample of mac and cheese you promised us?!  I didn’t say anything at the time, thinking maybe the sample was coming later, but the entire tour came and went, and it wasn’t until later in the afternoon when I realized we never got to try the mac and cheese.  When we got home, I revisited the listing for this tour, and apparently he removed the Beechers mac and cheese sample from the tour description.  Ummm, what?  It is totally understandable that he might have to change the samples offered in his tour for whatever reason, but it is not understandable why he never notified people who were already booked and paid that there would be a change to the itinerary.  Strike 2 against John!

This post doesn’t have enough photos (because I honestly barely had a chance to take photos as we ran around following the group), so it seems like a good place to post this photo that I captured of John:

To be fair, there were some good parts to this tour, so I’ll explain every stop we made and then give some final comments at the end…

Our next stop was at Totem Smokehouse Smoked Salmon, where one of the workers explained how they make their salmon jerky.  She passed out samples to everyone, but again, this was the kind of sample she passed out to EVERYONE, not just those who paid for our tour.  It was a really unique and intense flavor of salmon, and she called it salmon candy.

Next, John led us out of the market building to a park which overlooked Elliot Bay.  He pointed out the building where Starbucks originally brewed their coffee.  This pre-dated the “original Starbucks” located at the corner of Pike Place and Pine Street where tourists flock today, as that was just the original place where they first operated in the restaurant format.  John left us to enjoy the panoramic views over Elliot Bay as he went to pick up our first real sample of food.

He returned with a tray of 13 handmade biscuits with Beechers cheese baked in, made by Honey Biscuits.  Up until this point, I wasn’t sure if Ian’s child ticket qualified him to try samples on this tour, but since the tray had enough for everyone, including Ian, we took one for him.  And then in his true bratty fashion, he refused to eat it!  He really missed out because the biscuit was delicious, and certainly something he would have enjoyed.  We saved it for him to offer it again later when he was in a better mood, but he never ended up wanting it and Jason and I split it later in the day.  

We were thankful that John gave us time to finish our biscuits before we continued on with the tour.  Next, he led us back into the main market building to visit the famous fish mongers.  John said that they don’t throw the fish nearly as much as they are known for, and it typically only happens when someone makes a purchase and the mongers need to move the fish from one side of their stall to the other.  There was a huge crowd of people waiting to see the famous flying fish, but we waited for 10 minutes and never saw it happen.  I have seen it on prior visits to the market, so I didn’t really care that we missed it today, but I’m sure others on our tour were disappointed.  This is one thing we can’t fault John for though because he did tell us that it’s rare to see it nowadays.  I wasn’t kidding when I said there was a huge crowd:

That crowd made me glad we had Ian contained to a stroller because it would have been easy for him to get trampled on or get lost in the crowd.

Our next stop was the Corner Market, who won the James Beard award in 2020 for their Filipino cuisine.  We sampled a half of a lumpia (similar to a spring roll) and a small piece of some kind of sausage.  I have tried lumpia many times before as I’ve had many Filipino coworkers bring them in for potlucks, and these were just as good as the homemade ones I’ve had before.

After that, we went to DeLaurenti Food & Wine in the Economy Market building near the original entrance to the Market.  They opened in 1946 and supposedly have the best pizza in Washington state.  Unfortunately for us, John did provide us with a half slice of their pizza, but the only option was pepperoni which no one in my family will eat.  I tried picking off the pepperoni, but this pizza had barely any cheese, so all that was left was sauce and soggy, greasy bread, and even the sauce was extremely spicy and I couldn’t tolerate it.  That was the single biggest sample of the tour, so it wasn’t ideal that none of us could eat it.

At some point in the middle of all those stops, we also walked through a section of the market filled with crafty vendors selling paintings, ceramics, jewelry, and more.  We didn’t expect to have time to stop and browse the stalls, so this was likely more meant as a pass through when going from one restaurant stop to another.  What we found weird was that it felt like John was highlighting the vendors he was friendly with.  He kept stopping to chat with vendors and telling us how amazing their products were, but it just felt like an infomercial for John’s friends and not necessarily the places any of us would have cared to shop.

It is hard to explain the pacing of this tour as I retell our story, especially since I don’t have a physical map to show the location of each stop, and I don’t have notes about the places he showed us which didn’t serve food (a magic shop, a dried fruit vendor, the first store where John started working in the market in 1987, and a record shop).  Perhaps the most random of our stops was when he brought us to see a duo of a man and woman, both dressed in cat costumes, playing an accordion and a violin.  Apparently the woman playing violin was John’s girlfriend?  He told us how the tips she earns from playing violin in the Market earn her more than she used to earn from her corporate job so now she does this full time.  She was decent at playing the violin, but it just came across like he expected us to tip her.  No one did.

We spent some time walking through the lower levels of the market.  One of the reasons I wanted to book a formal tour versus just walking around the market on our own was because whenever I have been there in the past, I always stayed on the upper level.  I knew this market was huge, spanning several levels below street level and across multiple buildings, but it is very overwhelming if you don’t know where to go.  My hope was that this tour would give us an insider’s perspective on the best places to go, and in some ways, it did do that.  I would have never ventured down to the lower levels and other buildings of the market if not for this tour.  The issue was just in the way John led the tour in such a random order, and it felt so frantic the whole time.

We stopped briefly at Pure Food Fish Market to sample a tiny bite of salmon, which again, was something they gave every visitor who stopped there (not just those on our tour).

Our next official stop was at Los Agaves in the Sanitary Market Building, where we each got to try one street taco al pastor.  This was one of the times when John commented about us having a very large tour group because he usually finds us seats at the restaurant, but we had too many people so he recommended we should instead sit along the benches outside in the hallway.  We were getting very tired (not surprising considering I had taken over 7000 steps by this point in the day!), so sitting on a bench was fine with me as long as I was sitting!  The tacos were tasty, and it was nice being able to enjoy them away from the crowds.

When we were done, John led us to our final stop, Chukar Cherries for an assortment of chocolate covered dried cherries and nuts as dessert.  We ended the tour standing on a bridge leading to an elevator to the parking garage below the market, which was probably helpful to some people but didn’t matter much to us since we didn’t have a car today.  We said our goodbyes to John and the other people on our tour, then went on our way.

Now for a few more comments about our tour:

It was a very busy day at the market (as expected), and we kept ending up at the back of our tour group because we allowed everyone else to go ahead of us with the stroller.  The problem was that each time we stopped to take our samples, the rest of the group had their hands free and could eat the samples as they walked to the next location.  Jason’s hands were both occupied pushing the stroller (which remember, John told us to bring!), so he needed a moment to pop the sample in his mouth.  We were already the last ones in the group to take each sample, but John was terrible at remembering to wait for us to rejoin the group before moving on.  With so many other tourists walking in every direction, it was very stressful to always come out of a store and not know where to find John.  For example, when exiting Beechers, John was a half block away and we had to run to catch up!  Based on all the reviews I had read, this was definitely not his first day leading a tour.  I feel like it’s tour guide 101 to keep track of your group and not leave without people, especially when it’s so easy to get lost in the crowd.

The tour continued like that for the entire time.  The whole thing felt so chaotic as John zig-zagged back and forth around the market, seemingly in no particular order.  We passed by the same spot on multiple occasions as we went from one store to the next.  Perhaps had he taken the time to plot a logical route for us to follow, he could have slowed down and had the time to wait for the whole group to catch up before darting off to the next spot.  I took a few photos as we were walking through the market, but honestly, I missed nearly all of his explanations because he was too far ahead of us to hear anything. 

I thought this sign for the restrooms was relatable, thinking back to life when Ian was an infant…

So I think it is pretty obvious how we felt about this tour and whether or not we would recommend it.  I still think there is potential for a fun and informative tour of Pike Place Market, but perhaps one that actually delivered all the paid samples it claimed to have (as opposed to bringing us to all the places that give everyone a bite to taste regardless of taking a tour), and definitely one that followed a more predictable path versus the chaos we encountered.  To John’s credit, we never would have known which places offered free samples without going into every single store, so he took out the guess-work for us, but I am sure if I looked hard enough, I could have found a free walking tour (where the guide just works for tips) that took us to all the same places.  We paid for this tour expecting something above and beyond that, and I do not think this tour delivered what we expected.

The tour ended at 12:30pm, so we took the elevator down through the parking garage to reach Alaskan Way.  We walked along the waterfront, people watching as we walked.  We passed all the big touristy attractions like the Seattle Aquarium, the Seattle Great Wheel, and a huge brand new playground (which in hindsight, we probably should have stopped at to let Ian play, but honestly, he was still in his bad mood from this morning and we preferred not to poke the bear).  We continued about a half mile south of Pike Place Market until we reached the terminal for the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

Jason used to love visiting Bainbridge Island when he lived in Seattle, and he brought me there for dinner one night when we visited in 2016.  Unfortunately for us, we picked the wrong night to go as the locals who live on the island throw a huge block party one night of July 4th weekend and most of the restaurants and shops are closed for the night.  It was just our luck that we picked that night to try to go out to dinner there, and the few restaurants that were still open had extremely long waits for a table.  We ended up at a Vietnamese restaurant called Thuy’s Phó House which served… pho, something we ate nearly every week back home in San Jose (where we lived at the time).  Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed our pho as we usually do, but that’s not what we really wanted from our trip to Bainbridge Island.  We wanted to stroll the quaint, uncrowded streets and have a relaxing evening away from the hoards of tourists back in Seattle.  We knew when we planned this vacation that we wanted a re-do, and this afternoon was our chance to do just that!

We took the elevator to the upper level of the ferry terminal, then bought our tickets for $10.25 per adult.  We laughed at the sign saying children aged 6-12 were free… does that mean Ian can’t come with us??  Or do children under age 6 cost extra? Haha!  The lady laughed, but said all children under age 13 were free.  It was now just before 1pm, so she said the next ferry was leaving in 10 minutes, at 1:10pm.  We went into the building to use the restrooms and wait for the ferry to arrive.  I also snapped a photo of the ferry schedule so we could time our return trip. **Foreshadowing**

The ferry arrived on time, and after everyone got off, they opened the gates for us to start boarding.

We found a spot along the back railing where Ian could watch all the cars drive onto the ferry.  This was the happiest he had been all day, so we let him stay out there as long as he wanted.  It’s really impressive how many cars they can squeeze into the lower level of this ferry.

While Ian enjoyed his view of the cars, I enjoyed looking at this view of the Seattle skyline.

We could still see the cruise ships docked at Pier 91.  I can only imagine how much traffic there was approaching the cruise terminal with such huge ships both doing turnaround day at the same spot.

I couldn’t get enough of the views of the nearby attractions with the Great Wheel located just a few piers away.

We could also see Ivar’s, the restaurant where we planned to eat dinner after returning to Seattle tonight.

There was a fireboat docked next to Ivar’s.  We tried to explain to Ian how this was like a firetruck but for boats, but he didn’t believe us.

Inside, the ferry has tons of open seating.  I don’t think it ever sells out for pedestrians as the ferry has a maximum capacity of 2,500 passengers.  We witnessed that they do sell out for cars as the ferry holds up to 202 vehicles, and we saw as a few cars didn’t fit when they finished loading the lower level.

At exactly 1:30pm, I felt the ferry start to pull away from the pier, so I guess they gave us 20 minutes to board.

The skyline views were incredible as we moved out into the bay.  You really can’t get this view unless you are out on the water, so the ferry ride is worth it for the views alone.

It was fun that we saw cruise ships every day we were in Seattle.  Usually when we stay in a city for a few days pre- or post-cruise, we only have a view of the port on embarkation and debarkation day.  I loved that we could see the port so easily from wherever we were in Seattle and I always made it a point to figure out which ships were docked.

The ferry takes about 30 minutes to cross the bay.  As we saw that we were getting closer to Bainbridge Island, we moved to the front deck to watch our approach.

At 2pm, we made our final approach towards the dock.  In the background, you can see all the cars lined up to board for the return ferry back to Seattle.  It must be so interesting to live on Bainbridge Island and rely on this ferry every time you need to get to the mainland.

After we finished docking and we walked off the ferry, Ian insisted on standing at the window inside the ferry terminal so he could watch the cars drive off the ferry.

Our plan for the afternoon was to walk down the Bainbridge Brewing Alehouse.  While we were on the ferry, I looked up the walking directions from the ferry terminal and it was only 0.3 miles away.  When you walk out of the ferry terminal, there is really only one way to go, and most of the other passengers are going the same way so it is hard to get lost.  We walked along the main road until we reached Winslow Way, then turned left and the Bainbridge Brewing Alehouse was the second building from the corner.  Much to our dismay, there was a huge sign at the entrance stating “no minors allowed”!  Ugh, really?!  I understand when bars who only serve alcohol don’t allow minors, and even when restaurants that have a bar section and a dining room section don’t allow minors in the bar section, but this place was so strict that minors can’t even go in the dining section.  They had a huge patio that wrapped around the outside of the building, and we hoped we could sit outside and watch the people walking by, but I asked the bartender inside and he said that minors are not even allowed on the patio.  

I didn’t have a Plan B prepared, so I took out my phone and started Googling alternative options.  We wanted somewhere that served local craft beers (for the adults) and some kind of food that would appeal to Ian.  I found a place called Harbour Public House, but they were on the opposite side of the Winslow neighborhood, 0.6 miles away.  Before we walked all the way there, I called them to make sure they allowed minors, and the lady on the phone answered me as if that was the weirdest question she’d ever heard.  “Yes, of course we allow minors.  We don’t have any age restrictions.”  Okay, so now we had our Plan B!  

The walk to the Harbour Public House took us through downtown Winslow, passing lots of cute boutiques and cafes.  I particularly liked this mural painted on the side of one of the stores:

We turned left when we got to Madison Avenue to continue walking down towards the water.  On the way, we passed this store and I could not resist taking this photo:

I’m sure everyone else on the sidewalk thought I was crazy! 

When we got to the water, we turned right and continued our journey.  This restaurant was definitely off the beaten path, but when that path is a boardwalk along a marina filled with boats, I am okay with that!

It took us 18 minutes to reach the Harbour Public House from when we left the Alehouse, but it felt like we were in a different world.  I am sure there were other tourists here, but it really felt more like a place for locals.  I noticed several tables occupied by large groups of friends, and when we found a table on the patio, the couple at the table next to us told us they live on the island.  The patio itself was built up on a deck overlooking the marina, and had the largest umbrella I have ever seen to provide shade.  It honestly felt more like the top of a circus tent than an umbrella!

There was a plaque on the wall inside the restaurant explaining the history of the building.  Instead of trying to summarize it myself, I will share this information from the restaurant’s website:

The Harbour Public House was originally owned by Ambrose Grow and his wife, Amanda, and their family. They came to Eagle Harbor in 1881. He was a Civil War veteran and came because of the descriptive letters he had read in the New York and Kansas papers telling of the virtues of Bainbridge Island. Selling his large farm in Manhattan, Kansas, he homesteaded 160 acres here along the waterfront. In addition to being a charter member of the Eagle Harbor Congregational Church and the Madrone Schools, he was a prolific correspondent to the happenings in Eagle Harbor and environs. The Grow Family Homestead still stands today as home to Harbour Public House.

The building had so much character and we could have spent hours reading all of the kitchy signs and looking at the memorabilia they had on display, but Ian was getting hangry so we knew we needed to get him settled ASAP.  Unfortunately, they did not have a kids menu.  The Macaroni and Cheese Bowl sounded delicious, so we ordered that for Ian, knowing that Jason and I would also take a few bites.

You place your order inside at the bar, so Jason went inside to order a Tieton Wild Washington Apple Cider (yes, made with real Washington apples!) for me and a Fremont Dark Star Nitro Stout for himself while I sat outside with Ian.  It was such perfect weather for sitting outside in the shade with a beautiful view of the marina.

Jason returned to the table with our drinks and a pager to notify him when the food was ready.

I just realized I never took a photo of the mac and cheese, but OMG, it was HUGE!  It was served in the same bowl they used for their entree salads, and it probably could have fed all 3 of us for dinner!  It was only 3pm and we weren’t ready for dinner quite yet, so we asked for a smaller bowl to serve a reasonable portion to Ian, and Jason and I each tried a few bites.  We ended up asking for a take out box to take half of it to go because there was just too much to finish it.

Before we left, I took Ian to use the potty.  I loved all these funny signs that were hanging on the walls of the bathroom…

When we were done, I used Google Maps to plot a different route for us to walk back to the ferry terminal.  Since we were already down by the water, it didn’t seem necessary to climb all the way up the hill to the downtown area, so I knew there must be a shortcut somewhere.  Sure enough, I found a road that would lead us to the Waterfront Trail, which ended very close to the ferry terminal.  I don’t think it saved us much time since it was still a 1 mile walk and took us 20 minutes to complete, but it was nice to see a different part of the island.  Bainbridge Island is actually huge compared to the small area that we saw today, but we didn’t have access to a car, nor did we want to spend the time utilizing the public buses, so this was really more of an excuse to ride on the ferry and see the views!

When we reached the end of the Waterfront Trail, there was a clear sign pointing us towards the ferry…

I appreciated that they made it easy to find your way back, as I am sure they know many tourists come out to visit and explore Bainbridge Island.  

While we were at the Harbour Public House, I checked the ferry schedule.  There was a ferry at 3:50pm, but it would have been a rush to make that one, so we opted to take our time at the restaurant and aim for the 4:45pm ferry instead.  As it turned out, that was a mistake!  We got to the ferry terminal at 4:25pm and stood in line to wait for boarding to begin.  Remember, these ferries hold 2,500 people, so we weren’t worried about getting a seat or anything, but we didn’t know how long it would take us to walk back, and we definitely didn’t want to miss the ferry, so we got there a little early.  Once you get down to the terminal, there’s really nothing else to do besides get in line for the next ferry, so that’s what we did.  Twenty minutes later, there was an announcement that the ferry was delayed leaving Seattle.  The ferry didn’t arrive in Bainbridge until almost 5:30, and then they still had to let all the pedestrians and vehicles off before we could board.  The good news was that once we were allowed to board, everyone got on very quickly, and we pulled away from the dock at 5:37pm, nearly an hour late!  We kind of regretted taking our time at the restaurant because an hour spent sitting on the floor of the ferry terminal was definitely not the best use of our precious minutes on vacation.  Jason and I joked that we once again had bad luck when visiting Bainbridge Island, as something always goes wrong when we head over there.  Maybe if we ever go back, the third time will be the charm and things will go more smoothly for us?

Anyway, we stationed ourselves at the back of the ferry so Ian could watch as the workers released the lines and we sailed away.

As Bainbridge Island moved further into the distance, we walked through the ferry to the front deck so we could watch the views as we approached Seattle.

I noticed the Celebrity Edge was just starting to sail away, enroute to Alaska.

We docked back in Seattle at 6:10pm, and by now, we were all hungry again.  We resisted the urge to snack on the leftover mac and cheese because we had something better in mind.  Every time I visit Seattle, I always love to eat at Ivar’s Fish Bar.  I can even remember eating there as a child on a family vacation to Seattle.  When I realized that Ivar’s is located right next door to the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal, I knew we had to go there for dinner tonight. 

Ivar’s has a large indoor restaurant, but the weather was too perfect for us to dine inside tonight.  They also have a Fish Bar, where you order your food from the counter, then sit at a picnic table along the side of the building to eat your food.  

The seating area has great views of the water and the ferry terminal, but the most unique thing about it is all of the seagulls who patiently wait along the railing, hoping someone will toss them a french fry to eat.  We knew Ian would get a kick out of seeing all the birds, and we were right!

In case you thought it was frowned upon to feed the seagulls and encourage them to hang around the pier, the Seagull Society of Seattle gave us permission!

And so did Ivar’s!

The Fish Bar also has an indoor seating area in case of rain (because, you know, it rains sometimes in Seattle!), but we opted to sit outside.  I suppose that indoor area would also be useful if someone didn’t want to see the seagulls?

Jason and I each ordered the salmon and chips, and we each shared some with Ian.  It was fresh and delicious, as expected!

We kept an eye on the seagulls while we ate, but they were surprisingly obedient and never tried to land on our table and steal food that wasn’t offered to them.

We finished up our food around 7pm, and walked out onto Alaskan Way to request an Uber.  Minutes later, a car picked us up and we were back at our AirBNB by 7:30pm.  We were all exhausted, which wasn’t too surprising considering my watch said I had walked over 14,000 steps today!  Jason and I put Ian to bed, then we relaxed on the couch, sipping the beers we picked up yesterday and debriefing everything we had done that day.  It was hard to believe that tomorrow would be our last full day of this vacation, which we started planning a year and a half ago!

Up next: a low-key day in Seattle

Jason and I spent July 4th weekend in Seattle in 2016.  On that trip, we bought the City Pass and did all of the top tourist activities so we did not feel the need to repeat those things on this trip.  We did the Argosy locks cruise, visited the Museum of Pop Culture, saw the Chihuly glass exhibit, rode on the monorail, explored Pioneer Square and took the Underground Tour.  Here are a few photos from that trip…

This time around, we wanted to do some things we missed last time, and of course we also wanted to pick activities that Ian would enjoy.  My original plan when we got off the ship Thursday morning was to Uber to our AirBNB, drop off our luggage, then spend the day exploring the Seattle Center.  Unfortunately, someone was booked at our AirBNB the night before us, and their check out time was 11am, so we were not allowed to drop off our luggage until 11:30am (check in time was 4pm).  If we had to be off the Luminosa by around 9am, that left us with 2+ hours of time in limbo before we could drop off our bags.  The AirBNB was only a 10 minute drive from the cruise port, and it didn’t look like there was anything to do at the cruise port, especially with all of our luggage.  We could have paid money to check our luggage at the port for a few hours, but that didn’t really make sense as there was nothing to do within walking distance, and if we took a taxi somewhere, we would have to return here at the end of the day anyway.  After a lot of thought about our possibilities, we decided to totally scrap our original plan and instead, we rented a car.  We could take an Uber to pick up the car, put our luggage in the trunk, and drive around the city until it was time to check into the AirBNB.

At first, I assumed we would rent a car with one of the typical car rental agencies, but none of them had a location near the cruise port.  The best we could find was an Avis/Budget office near the Seattle Center, but they were only open from 8am until 4pm, and you had to return the car before their office closed.  With the AirBNB check in time being 4pm, it just didn’t work with our plans to rent from that location.  

One night in June, we were watching TV and there was a commercial for Turo.  Neither of us have ever heard of Turo, but it is basically like AirBNB but for cars.  People rent out their own private cars through an app.  We found someone renting a Toyota Rav4 from a location about a mile from our AirBNB.  That seemed doable and our plans began to take shape.  We could take an Uber from the cruise port to pick up car, load our bags in the trunk, spend the day exploring, drop off the bags at the AirBNB at 4pm, go out to dinner, return the car, then walk the mile back to the AirBNB at the end of the day.  Turo offered free cancellation until the day before the car rental, so I booked the car and then started to research what we could do all day.

I wanted to take advantage of having a car and not needing to stay right in the main city center, and I also wanted to do something kid-friendly.  That’s when I discovered the Outback Kangaroo Farm.  It was located an hour north of Seattle, so even Jason, who lived in Seattle for 6 years before we met, had never heard of it.  They offered guided tours of their farm where visitors can interact with unique animals including kangaroos, wallabies, wallaroos, llamas, lemurs, alpacas, and emus.  This just seemed like such a rare opportunity, even if it was a bit out of our comfort zone!  I called to book tickets and they explained that they do not take reservations (except for large groups), and we should just show up.  They have 4 tours per day, at 10am, 12pm, 2pm, and 4pm, but if you arrive after the tour starts, you cannot join it late and must wait for the next tour.  I preferred for us to catch the 10am tour, as Ian would likely be cranky and hungry by noon, but I wasn’t sure if it was possible to get off the ship, collect our luggage, go through immigration, get an Uber, pick up the Turo car, and drive an hour to the Kangaroo Farm all before 10am.  We decided to let that be a game day decision.  If we were making great timing and picked up the Turo at or before 8:45am, we would go straight to the farm.  If we were running later than that, we would first drive up to Kerry Park and the Fremont Troll, then head up to the farm for the 12pm tour.

When my alarm went off at 6am, we were already docked in Seattle.  I must say that knowing we still had three full days left on our vacation definitely took the edge off my usual debarkation day depression.  It felt like a full-circle moment when I went out on the balcony and saw the same view of the marina we had seen one week earlier on embarkation day.

The refueling barge was just pulling up to help the Luminosa prepare for her next voyage.

We finished packing and getting ready, then went up to the Lido buffet for our last burrito breakfast at 7:15am.  I expected to see a huge mob scene, but it wasn’t all that busy when we were there.  Perhaps a lot of people took their own luggage off the ship because Zach had already called the first few self-debarkation groups by then.  There was no line at all for our burritos, so I got our food while Jason sat at the table with Ian and all of our carry on bags.

When we were finished eating, we left the ship around 8am.  I forgot to mention this, but each port day morning, there was a big sign at the deck 9 midship elevators near the Lido buffet which told you where to go to find the gangway.  That was actually very helpful because the deck and location did vary from port to port.  Today, that sign said we should exit on deck 2.  We waited a while for an empty elevator with enough space for us, Ian in his stroller, and our carry on bags.  It took a few minutes for an empty elevator to arrive, but when we got off on deck 2, we couldn’t find the exit.  It turned out that  the sign was wrong and we needed to exit on deck 3, so we had to wait for another elevator to go up one deck.  That was frustrating because any other day, we would have just taken the stairs, but we had 2 overstuffed and heavy rolling carry on bags plus Ian in his stroller, so we didn’t have enough hands to carry everything up a flight of stairs and needed to wait for another elevator with space for us amidst all the other passengers who also had their bags.  Anyway, when we eventually found the gangway, there was a long line of people ahead of us, waiting to get into the terminal.

Once we finally got into the terminal and down to the lower level, we found our checked bags very quickly.  There was a porter waiting nearby, so we flagged him down and loaded all the bags on his trolley.  Passport control had no line, so we got through quickly, even with using our passports but Ian’s birth certificate.  The porter told us that if we wanted an Uber, we had to either take a shuttle or walk 10 minutes to the ride share lot.  That seemed like a hassle, so we just opted for a taxi instead.  Even if the taxi was more expensive than Uber, that was worth the convenience of not having to walk to the other parking lot.  The porter brought us to the first available taxi, but he refused our ride because we were just going downtown and not to the airport for a higher fare ride.  The porter got in an argument with him and tried to report him to the man in charge of taxis at the port, but he drove away.  Honestly, I was okay with that because I wasn’t thrilled about riding in his taxi after he was so riled up.  The next taxi driver to pull up didn’t ask where we were going and we knew the porter was smart enough to not say anything if not asked, so we put all our bags in the trunk and got seated in the backseat and then told him our destination.  It wasn’t a problem at all, and he said it would cost $28 for the ride.  I can’t imagine Uber would have been much cheaper, so we were happy with our decision to take the taxi.  We were on our way by 8:35am. 

As we drove to the Turo pick up location, I messaged the owner through the app that we were on our way.  She said she pulled the car out of her garage and parked it on the street for us, so I saw the car immediately when the taxi dropped us off.  Turo requires you to take 15+ photos of both the interior and exterior of the vehicle at both drop off and pick up, which I suppose isn’t the worst idea as a CYA.  I took the obligatory photos of the car while Jason loaded our luggage in the trunk and got Ian into his car seat. 

By the time we finished all of that, it was a few minutes after 9am and we knew we wouldn’t make it to the Kangaroo Farm in time for the 10am tour.  I think that ended up working out for the best with how the rest of our day flowed.  We already had our Plan B in mind, so we typed in the address for Kerry Park into the GPS and off we went.

Kerry Park is located up on a hill in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle.  The park itself is well-kept, but it is small. No worries though because the real reason it is worth a visit is for the sweeping views over Seattle.

They have binoculars that you can use to get a better look at things in the distance.  We spent a few minutes here, pointing out some of the landmarks to Ian.  I thought we might be able to see Pier 91 and the Luminosa, but it was just beyond the curve of the hill and we couldn’t see it.

Next, we drove across the Fremont Bridge into the Fremont neighborhood.  For once, I was actually hoping the draw bridge would be raised because Ian has never seen a draw bridge before.  It was down, so we didn’t mention anything (we didn’t want him to be upset at missing out on seeing it!) and just drove over it like any normal bridge.

Fremont is a funky area of town, with lots of interesting shops and restaurants, but that’s not why we were here.  Under the Aurora Bridge sits the Fremont Troll.  I first learned about this troll when it was used as a filming location from the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, and Jason took me here to see it on our 2016 trip.  I thought Ian would enjoy it, even if he didn’t know the pop culture movie reference, and since we already had a car to drive up there and it was on our way towards the Kangaroo Farm, we made a quick stop.  When we were here on a weekend in 2016, it was crowded with lots of other people seeing it too.  This time, however, we were here on a Thursday morning, so we got the troll all to ourselves.

It was nice to see that he was being well maintained and they had painted over the graffiti on his face and hands from when we visited in 2016.

The troll is huge, and you can really see the perspective when Jason and Ian climbed up to the top.

This looked like a little trail next to the troll, but we decided not to explore it because our car was double parked.  I guess that’s the one downside to the troll’s location- there is no parking lot and street parking is very limited.

Standing with your back to the troll, you get a cool view of the underside of the Aurora Bridge.

We were back in the car by 9:50am, so it was still a little early to drive up to the Kangaroo Farm.  The lady on the phone had said there is nothing to do on their grounds, so she didn’t recommend we arrive early.  More on that when we get there!  If we went straight there, we would arrive before 11am and have an hour of time to kill.  Instead, we decided to stop at a Target that we saw from the highway along the way.  We figured that would give Ian a chance to go potty (remembering we hadn’t seen a bathroom since getting off the ship at 8am!), and we could kill any remaining time by walking around the store.

Aside from that small detour, it was an easy drive from Seattle up to the town of Arlington.  We spent most of the drive going north on I-5.  We were both surprised to see how much traffic there was on the southbound side going towards Seattle considering it was so late in the morning for a typical rush hour commute.  When we got off I-5, we drove for about 15 minutes through the town.  At one point we were behind this logging truck, which is not something I’ve ever seen before.  It felt very Pacific Northwest!

The driveway entrance to the Outback Kangaroo Farm came up quickly, and the sign was so small we almost drove right past it!  We arrived at 11:30am, so we were still a bit early for the 12pm tour, but we figured that would give us time to give Ian a snack and buy our tickets to the tour.  Remember how the lady told me there isn’t anything to do on their grounds before the tour?  Maybe she thought I meant I wanted to play with the animals on my own?  I’m not sure, but there was actually quite a lot to do.  They had these cute photo opportunities (which of course, Ian refused to do):

There were picnic tables and other places to sit while you waited.

There were a bunch of chickens roaming free on the property.

There was a cage with lemurs right behind the main office.  Honestly, we could have just sat and watched the lemurs for an hour and been happy!  They were so cute and energetic, and sort of looked like if a cat mated with a raccoon.

And there were two peacocks walking around the grounds as well.

I really think that lady undersold all that there was to do and see aside from the tour itself, and we had plenty to see to fill our time while we waited for the 12pm tour.  

I went inside the front office to buy our tickets.  The tour costs $25 per adult, and $15 for children aged 2-12.  There was no physical ticket for the tour, so I don’t know how they kept track of who paid their entrance fee, unless they just went by the honor system and assumed no one would drive all the way out there to be dishonest?  The lady told me the tour would start promptly at 12pm at the lemur cage, so I went back outside to find Jason and Ian.  By then, there were already a handful of visitors waiting around the property, and it was starting to get crowded.

By the time our 12pm tour started, there were over 100 visitors there!  Where did all of these people come from?!  Jason lived in Seattle for 6 years and had never heard of it!  It wasn’t just families either- there was a minibus filled with residents from an assisted living facility!  We really didn’t expect it to be this crowded, especially considering it was a Thursday afternoon, and now we kind of wished we got off the ship earlier this morning since the 10am tours were said to be less crowded on most days.

The lady who sold us our tickets entered the lemur cage to feed them while she explained the rules of the zoo.  

She said the most important thing was that if you approached an animal and it walked away from you, you should just let it be and don’t follow it.  She said we shouldn’t run because that excites the animals, and not in a good way!  She also advised us that when we are feeding the animals, if the food drops on the floor, we should not pick it up to try feeding them again because you never know what germs are on the ground.  If the animal still wanted the food, it could eat it off the ground on its own.

After that brief introduction, they split us up into 2 groups, and we proceeded through the zoo in opposite directions to make it less crowded with the animals at any one time.  Our group started with a visit to the kangaroo pen.  They had around 10 kangaroos inside this space, and we each took one leaf from a tree outside the pen that we could feed to the kangaroos.  I have never seen a kangaroo up close before, so while we were really here for Ian’s enjoyment, I thought it was fun too!

Throughout this vacation, Ian has really impressed us with his willingness to do things that are out of his comfort zone.  Part of me feared he wouldn’t want to participate, since at home, he only likes seeing animals from a distance but gets scared when they come close to him.  If he sees someone walking their dog, he runs to me and says he doesn’t want the dog to lick him.  I started to second guess our plan to come here at all because I thought he might be scared of the animals.  Well, that was so far from what actually happened.  Ian took his leaf and went right up to the kangaroo to feed it!  

The kangaroos were very calm and must be used to having visitors enter their space throughout the day.  Not only did they allow us to feed and pet them, they seemed to enjoy it.  It reminded me of a dog who loves to have his belly rubbed.  

When he saw me pet the kangaroo, Ian said he wanted to do it too!

Just look at that kangaroo’s face!  He was loving all this attention!  Meanwhile, from these photos you would never realize how many people were in this pen with us.  The grounds were quite large, giving the kangaroos a ton of space to run (err, hop) around, and the visitors all had plenty of space to spread out.  Of course we all wanted to see the animals, but only a few families shared each one, and we all took turns so everyone had a chance to take photos and interact with them.  We stayed with the kangaroos for 10 minutes, then moved on to the next area.

Up next, we got to feed the mini donkeys.  They were fenced into their pen, so we couldn’t get as close as we did to the kangaroos, but as soon as they saw us coming, they went right up to the fence because they knew they were about to be fed.

Next, we saw the Nigerian Dwarf Goats.  It was nice to see that while they were all excited to be fed a snack, the animals were all very calm and we felt safe being so close to them.  Our guide handed out the appropriate food as we approached each new animal, and he showed us how to properly feed them.

Next up was the emus.  At first, I thought these were ostriches, but our guide, Ernie, corrected me.  Among other differences, ostriches are larger and are native to Africa, whereas emus are smaller and are native to Australia (which makes sense as to why they are at this kangaroo farm!).

This miniature horse had his own pen.  Ernie said he is feisty and tends to bite people so we should keep a safe distance from him.

The last stop on the tour was to visit the llamas and alpacas.  I usually (and mistakenly) use those words interchangeably, but they are different species.  Llamas are larger and have a longer face and ears.  Alpacas are smaller, with a shorter, more blunt face and smaller, pointed ears.  They play nicely together so they shared a pen at this zoo, and we were able to get as close to them as they let us.  They were all very friendly, and we could see them standing patiently behind the fence, waiting for Ernie to let us in.

Once we entered the pen, they came right up to us!

Ian has a few Llama Llama books at home, so we knew he would enjoy this part of the tour.  He really took to this alpaca, but it took us a while to convince him it wasn’t a llama!

Proof that I was there too!

The tour was 45 minutes long and we thought it was worth every penny!  At first, we questioned spending $65 for 45 minutes at a petting zoo considering we have a similar zoo near our house in Phoenix which is free (although it has different animals like pigs, chickens, peacocks, goats, and sheep).  As soon as we saw how much fun Ian had petting and feeding the animals, we knew we made the right decision to come here.  And even Jason and I had fun getting to feed and pet the kangaroos, llamas, and alpacas, as that is certainly not something either of us had ever done before.  On our way out of the last pen, Ernie encouraged everyone to use their hand washing station before returning to the car.  We also changed out of our dirty sneakers and into flip flops before getting in the car so we wouldn’t track all of that dirt into the rental.

It was now 12:45pm, and the place I wanted to go for lunch didn’t open until 2pm, so we had some time to kill.  There was a Walmart that we had to drive past anyway, so we stopped in to buy a few beers to bring back to the AirBNB, since we knew we’d be trapped there after putting Ian to sleep each night.

I knew we would have some time in the afternoon after finishing at the farm and before we could check into the AirBNB at 4pm.  I looked into some options and discovered the Five Rights Brewery in Marysville.  It was located just off I-5, about midway between the farm and our AirBNB, so it was on our way.  Aside from their selection of craft beers, they had a full menu including a kids menu, so it was the perfect place for a late lunch.  We arrived right as they were scheduled to open at 2pm, and there were already a handful of other people inside.  I guess they opened early today?

Jason and I both ordered a pint of the German-style hefeweizen, and we shared the flatbread pizza so we wouldn’t spoil our dinner.  We got Ian the Mini Mac from the kids menu, which we thought was funny that they served it in a coffee mug!  Everything was delicious and this was a great place to stop for a quick light lunch on our way back towards Seattle.

We finished at the brewery by 3pm and got back in the car for the hour-long moderately-trafficy drive back to our AirBNB.  We pulled into the driveway at exactly 4pm, just in time to check in.  The AirBNB host had messaged me this morning with the access code to open the front door, so we let ourselves in.  I quickly took some photos before we had a chance to mess it up.

Our unit was the bottom level of a duplex, with our front door facing the back alley between the houses as opposed to the main street where the upstairs unit entered from.  It had two bedrooms and one bathroom, plus a full kitchen, a living room, and a parking space.  

This bedroom was at the back of the house, right next to the front door and across from the kitchen, so we let Ian take this room because it would be quieter for him versus facing the main street.

This was the kitchen, with the front door open at the right, and Ian’s room just to the right of that.

Turning around 180 degrees, this was the living room space with a couch and a smart TV.  We could have signed into one of our own streaming accounts, but we never even turned the TV on while we stayed here.  Straight ahead was the bathroom, and the door to the left was our bedroom, so it worked well to have Ian far down at the other end of the hall where he wouldn’t hear us talking when he was trying to sleep.

This was our bedroom, with a queen-sized bed, a desk, a dresser, and a big closet.

This was the bathroom.  I find that there is often something quirky when we stay in an AirBNB.  In this house, it was the bathroom… for some reason, the toilet was elevated on a 6” platform.  I felt like a little kid sitting on that toilet with my feet dangling off the edge, since my legs were too short to reach the ground.  I am sure there was something about the unit being partly below ground that made this necessary for the plumbing pipes, but it was so awkward!  I will give our AirBNB host credit for being very responsive in answering all of my questions before arrival and during our stay.  She has two kids around Ian’s age, which was one reason we picked this rental because we knew she would understand if Ian had an outburst and she heard it upstairs.  I messaged her to ask if she had a step stool Ian could use to reach the sink to wash his hands, and she brought one down for us five minutes later!  

We packed our evening clothes in my carry on bag for quick access, so we all changed into nicer clothes (ie: clothes that didn’t touch a kangaroo and alpaca earlier in the day!), and got back in the rental car at 4:45pm.  Before the cruise, I had made a 5pm reservation for a nice seafood restaurant called Palisade.  We picked it because it is part of the Landry’s group of restaurants.  Costco sells discounted gift cards to use at any restaurant operated by Landry’s, and Jason had stocked up our supply a few months ago when Costco was running an additional sale giving us the equivalent of 40% off.  We used to go to the Scottsdale location of Chart House every year on our anniversary, but in June, I found out that the restaurant closed.  There really aren’t many other Landry’s options near us, so when we realized Palisade was operated by Landry’s and was located so close to our AirBNB, we decided to go there for tonight’s dinner.  I packed our Costco gift cards so our bill would be heavily discounted, and it gave us something nice to look forward to after the cruise.  I knew the restaurant was located very close to Pier 91, but I didn’t realize just how close it was until I stood on our balcony and saw the restaurant right there!

As a reminder, this was a photo I took from our balcony on embarkation day, and the brown building behind the marina was Palisade.

Driving to the restaurant was a little confusing as there were several exits from the Magnolia Bridge and we didn’t want to end up back at the cruise ship terminal!  We got turned around a few times, but eventually found our way to the correct parking lot, just a few minutes late for our reservation.

The inside of this restaurant is beautiful and rather unique, with a huge koi pond running through the middle, and an overpass bridge so you can walk from the bar area to the dining room.

I checked in for our reservation and apologized for our tardiness, but the hostess said it was no problem at all and led us to a large table for 4, along the wall of windows overlooking the marina.  I just realized we missed a great photo opportunity and should have asked the waiter to take a picture of us seated at the table with all the boats in the background.  Guess we’ll just have to go back and eat there another time!  This was the view from our table:

We placed our food and drink orders, then I went back outside to take some photos of the marina without the glare from the windows.  We knew that making a 5pm dinner reservation meant we would likely be too late to watch the Luminosa sail away.  It was crazy to think that we had just debarked this morning, since it felt like we had done so many things since then!  I checked on Cruise Mapper, and sure enough, the Luminosa was well on her way up the Puget Sound to bring a new set of passengers north to Alaska.  There was another ship also docked at Pier 91 today.  I honestly didn’t even notice her presence when we debarked this morning, but I assume she was there and I just wasn’t paying attention?  Anyway, that ship was Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, and she was still docked when we arrived for dinner, and I could see her beyond the smaller boats in the marina.

By the time I returned to the table 10 minutes later, our cocktails had arrived.  I ordered the Effervescence, made with Tito’s Vodka, Italicus Bergamot Liqueur, Fiorente Elderflower Liqueur, lemon, and prosecco.

Jason’s cocktail was called Smoke and Bourbon, made with Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon, Combier Orange Liqueur, Meletti Amaro, Filthy Black Cherry Syrup, and Cherry Wood Toast.  The waiter brought all the ingredients for Jason’s drink on a bar cart and prepared it tableside, including lighting the flame for the smokey flavor.

We sipped our cocktails and continued to admire the views.

A few minutes later, the waiter brought out our entrees.  Jason ordered the King Salmon, because he always tries to eat as much salmon as possible when he visits Seattle.  He said it was very fresh and cooked perfectly.  I ordered the Shellfish Linguine, with lobster, shrimp, mussels, clams, scallops in a garlic butter sauce.  When I ordered, the waiter told me this dish was similar to cioppino in that it’s more of a broth than a pasta sauce, but that was fine with me.  This felt like an upscale version of the penne mariscos I ordered last night on the ship, and it was delicious.

As we were eating, I looked up and noticed the Queen Elizabeth was sailing away.  Ian got a kick out of getting to watch the cruise ship sail by, so it was nice that our timing worked out.

Overall, we had a wonderful experience at Palisade.  All of our food and drinks were delicious, and you really can’t beat the views!  We left the restaurant around 6:45pm, drove to a nearby gas station to fill up the car with gas, then drove back to the pick up location to drop off our Turo car rental.  I took the necessary photos of the inside and outside of the car, and returned the keys to the mailroom in the owner’s apartment building as instructed.  The whole process of renting with Turo was very easy and we would definitely consider renting through that app in the future.  I guess the one problem with it is that you can’t do a one-way rental.  We need to rent a car for our cruise with my parents in December, but we are picking it up from the Orlando Airport and need to drop it off near Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, so we will need to use a mainstream car rental agency.  I doubt someone who owns a car in Orlando and uses the Turo app to rent it out would appreciate having to retrieve their car from Ft. Lauderdale!  But for a simple one-day rental where you stay nearby the same city all day, Turo worked out great.

One of the reasons we picked this particular Turo rental was that we would be dropping off the car 1 mile from our AirBNB.  We purposely scheduled our day with time to unload the suitcases from the trunk when we checked into our AirBNB so now we were luggage-free and could walk back tonight.  There were plenty of ways to get from Point A to Point B, but we opted to cut through the Seattle Center to give Ian a better view of the Space Needle.

On our way, we passed KOMO Plaza, which was the building used for exterior shots of Seattle Grace Hospital in early seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.  It is not a hospital at all, but is actually home to a TV station and several other businesses.  Still, it was still fun to see in person after watching that show for 2 decades.

It makes sense why the show’s location scouts were drawn to this building as it is located directly across the street from the Space Needle, setting the scene for the Seattle-based drama.

Ian’s face lit up as soon as he saw the “Space Noodle” right in front of him!  

We continued walking through the Seattle Center and passed by the Chihuly Glass Garden and Museum.  We did not pay to enter here on this trip as Jason and I had already been there in 2016 and we didn’t think Ian would really appreciate it.  We did point out the giant whimsical flowers though.

We got back to the AirBNB at 7:45pm.  We gave Ian a very thorough bath to wash away the grime from playing at the farm, then we got him ready for bed.  We were a little nervous about letting him sleep alone in the front bedroom because the bed was much higher than any other bed he has slept in.  He has a tendency to lay at the very edge of the bed, which is fine at home where his bed is only a few inches off the ground, and it was even fine on the cruise ship all week because the couch bolsters were placed along the side as an added cushion.  This AirBNB had a ton of throw pillows in both bedrooms and on the living room couch, so we placed them around the perimeter of the mattress, hoping that would keep him centered on the bed while he slept.  We also put more pillows on the floor around the bed, so just in case he did fall off, there would be something to cushion his fall.

Ian was asleep by 8:15pm, which is impressive considering how many late nights he had this week, although not all that surprising considering he missed his nap today.  Jason and I stayed up a little later, talking through the logistics for tomorrow, then we went to bed by 10pm.

Up next: Pike Place Market Food Tour, then taking the ferry to Bainbridge Island