We're back from an AMAZING time aboard the Norwegian Epic! Highlights included the Blue Man group, Cirque "Dinner and Dreams", and the Legends in Concert (celebrity impersonator) shows. We also had great family entertainment like a Nickelodeon character breakfast with Sponge Bob and Diego, balloon animal making, "Slime Time Live", "Deal or No Deal", cupcake decorating, 10 pin bowling, t-shirt designing and a scavenger hunt.
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There were 3 ports of call on this cruise. We got off in St. Thomas, USVI and visited Coral World where Cale was able to pet a shark! Cale also got his first ocean beach experience looking for shells and building sand castles on some of the nicest sand I've ever seen! The other two ports, St. Maerten and Nassau, Bahamas we made into water sliding days while most everyone else was off the boat. We must have gone down the slides as least 50 times each! One (purple) is completely in the dark, another (green) is super fast and goes off the side of the boat and the third ("the plunge") has a giant bowl where you go around and around in an inner-tube before plunging down the center. Cale was very brave to go on all of these by himself!
Of course, Santa also found us on the boat as he had promised.
Click here to watch the VIDEO of Christmas morning! Santa also made an appearance on the boat and gave presents to each of the 1000 or so kids that were on-board. Pretty amazing!! We also went to a Christmas caroling family time as well as a show put on by the staff for Christmas. By the way, there are over 1700 staff on this boat, good thing they weren't all in the show!
Other highlights included the Stateroom which was beautifully designed (all curved including a round bed) and it had the wonderful balcony view. It is quite an experience to go to sleep and wake up to the lapping of waves! We will miss that!
Actually, we will miss a lot of things including the outstanding food! With the "freestyle cruising" options on this boat, there were was food all day long for you to enjoy in several restaurants and buffets. Cale enjoyed ice-cream EVERY day including as a late night snack one day!
So, we still feel like we're swimming a bit, possibly from all the excitement, possibly from all the actual swimming, but mostly because of the constant gentle rocking of the boat. "Sea legs" we definitely do not have as prairie folk!! We're glad to be home for sure, but that blast of cold when getting off the plane really makes it tempting to want to turn around and go back... maybe we can find jobs in the education department on the boat?
Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas, sorry we couldn't do it earlier but there was no internet on the boat, (kind of a nice break actually)! And, we wish you all a Happy New Year!
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