Spring Break 2024 - Miami, FL

 Unfortunately, our amazing trip on the Oasis of the Sea had to come to an end (although we definitely toyed with the idea of stowing away on the ship and sailing to Barcelona with it!)

We woke up pretty early because we had to disembark fairly early. The sun was just rising over Miami Beach.

I always like how calm the water is in the morning. It almost looks a bit foggy here, too.

We finally docked at the cruise port in Miami. Time to leave! Nooooo!

There's always a big line when you disembark!

Our flight back to Boston didn't leave until almost 8 pm, so we had about 10 hours to kill before that.  So we got a hotel for the day in Miami Beach. Goodbye Oasis!

Miami Beach has such an old school, art deco vibe. I love that they kept this feel to it.  There are about 800 buildings that were built between 1923-1943 that are in the National Historic District here.  Essex House is from 1938!

Our hotel was also one of those Art Deco hotels. We stayed at the Catalina Hotel and Beach Club which I think was built in 1940 (I saw one place that said it was built in 1916 which might because this hotel is really three buildings in one, so perhaps one of the buildings was constructed before the others).  It had a pool with towel service, which is pretty much all we needed.  You can see that one of my kids promptly took a nap!

Hello, Rootie. I'm going to miss seeing you around.

This has such a Miami Beach vibe to it! Oh wait, maybe that's because it IS Miami Beach!

Here is Natalie in front of one section of our hotel, which was right on A1A.

It was such a cool hotel! 

After the four of us had some lunch, Grant and I opted to stay by the pool while Todd and Natalie went for a walk toward Lincoln Road where they went back to a store called Racing Miami.  Natalie loves F1 racing and was happy to see a cardboard cutout of Lewis Hamilton.

I mean, he's kind of the current GOAT of F1.

She really wants to do F1 broadcasting some day!

Meanwhile, this is what Grant and I were doing.

A phone, sunglasses and apparently all the towels. And socks with sandals.

Todd took this picture of the vibe along A1A.

Todd and Natalie also wanted to go to the beach, so they walked down to check out the scene.

Natalie putting her feet into the green Atlantic Ocean.

Todd and Natalie at Miami Beach 💖

Aaaaand then Natalie decided she wanted to get in the Atlantic Ocean... so she did!

After Todd and Natalie came back, we all went to our room to clean up before we took a (very expensive) Uber to the airport. I snapped this picture of the upstairs of our hotel.

Poor Grantie had a headache on the plane home, so Natalie was very sweet and let him put his head on her shoulder.

Until next time, Miami!  We had a fantastic vacation!  

Spring Break 2024 - Royal Caribbean Cruise Day 7 (Day At Sea)

Our last day was a day at sea, and we made the most of it!

Natalie and I didn't have any reservations for ice skating, but this is LITERALLY her favorite thing in the world - she even works at an ice skating rink, so we had to do it.  We got there super early and were able to get a spot with the first group of the day.

She is officially a much better skater than me now.  In fact, she was better than everyone else there!

I still got it, though!

Fantastic photo, Todd.  What kind of faces are we making here? Oh well, we were definitely the best skaters.

No, I don't WANT to go back to Miami. I want to live on this ship, like Super Mario does.

The bag that I kept my phone in must have gotten some water in it because my photos by the pool looked like they were taken in a sauna.  But this was a cute one of Todd, Grant and my mom!

And one of me, Todd and Grant!

And a much better one of Natalie and her Nana!

Me, my mom and Natalie in the pool on the Oasis of the Seas.

Me and my mama, cooling off in the pool. 

I'm not sure if she's trying to drown him here. Wouldn't be the first time.

Todd had enough of all of us and went to the hot tub. Even on a warm day, it's enjoyable with a tropical drink!

Someone left one of these fancy, comfy chairs so I stole it!

My new favorite bartender was the one by the Lime & Coconut... his name is BEER!

Me, Todd, beer, beer and Beer.

Back in the room, we decided to do our own happy hour with Todd's birthday cake and the champagne we won.  We stopped by Sorrento's for some pizza too (because it was the last day and we hadn't had any yet!).  We also grabbed some OJ for our champagne.

And all of that turned into THIS! Happy hour on the balcony!

While Todd and I had happy hour, the kids finally did the zip line!  Here we are, trying to cram in all the fun activities on the last day.  We didn't get any pictures of Grant, but here is is waiting for Natalie to do the zipline.

And here she is getting ready to zip line on a cruise ship!

Todd took a video but he grabbed a screen shot from the video of Natalie coming into the landing spot.

After happy hour, Todd, my mom and I went down to the Globe and Atlas for one last round of trivia.  These were our answers.

Unfortunately, there was only ONE winner. No second or third place. So when the emcee came over, we jokingly asked her if having one point fewer than the winners meant we got second place. She said yes and declared us the second place winners!  Of course, it helped that we got the last question because it was about her home country, Argentina!

She didn't have anything to give us, so she went to the back and grabbed a couple of the cute bracelets!  Good enough for me!  Really, I just wanted to know if I was in second place for bragging rights.  If you're counting along at home, you'll remember we already got second place in another round of travel trivia.  Two second place wins might not equal our big first place win on the MSC Meraviglia but it's not too bad, considering this ship is much bigger!

Mom and I chatted for a bit after we collected our "winnings" and we pretty much closed down the place because we were the only people in there.

Finally, it was time for our FINAL dinner with Pely and Sandeep! Nooooo!  The people next to us were super sweet and we enjoyed sitting next to them every night. Look, Sandeep KNOWS he is in our family selfie!

One final cruise sunset. We never really got to see the sunsets because we always ate dinner when the sun was setting!

Grant really liked Pely... so he wanted a picture with him and it turned out really cute!

Pely and Sandeep, the best dynamic duo on the ship!  Sorry if you got any other waiter/assistant waiter duo because this one was definitely the best!

After dinner, we naturally needed to go do some karaoke. Here, Natalie and Jordan are singing Rolling in the Deep by Adele.

And after a few songs, everyone was tired so the kids took off - Natalie went out with her ship friends and Grant went back to the room with Nana, much like he did every night!  Todd and I went over to the Bionic Bar to have a not-so-great drink made!  But it was really cool in theory and fun to watch the machines make us a drink.

Although we took this picture as we boarded, I wanted to end this blog series on a happy note by remembering how excited we were about the upcoming week when we boarded.

Until next time, Royal Caribbean!