Pre-Christmas Cruise with the Jaques Family

December is always a super busy time for the Jaques Family. With two daughters who are dancers we have Nutcracker and the start to our Competition Season. This year our daughters had a 3 day convention in Daytona Beach Florida. My oldest was also competing that weekend and then we were off to a 5 Night Cruise on Brilliance of the Seas out of Tampa Florida. Sunday night December 18th we left Daytona and went home to unpack and repack for the cruise. The next morning we left for Tampa. It is less than a 2 hour drive for us which is nice. The weird thing is the last time we went out of Tampa it was on this exact ship in March of 2020 and on the 2nd day of our cruise they announced the shutdown. I was very much looking forward to this cruise to have some down time after a super busy and exhausting dance weekend and before the craziness of Christmas.

We had no traffic on the way there which we weren't sure of being a Monday morning. We got to the port pulled in to drop our luggage, it wasn't hectic or very many people and then we circled back to the parking garage. I have to say this might have been the easiest and quickest of any cruise. The only thing I don't like is the parking garage is across the street so you have to walk a bit and the street is busy so you have to watch the kids. I suppose one of us could have stayed at the drop off and the other park the car but we like to take a moment make sure everyone has their backpacks and nothing gets left in the car and then walk together. We got inside and went through security with no line, walked to check in which took less than 5 minutes and then we were sitting waiting to board the ship. Our check in time was 11am but we were checked in and in the sitting area by 10:30 am. We were in a Junior Suite this time so we boarded first before anyone else.

We went straight to the Windjammer for lunch before it got busy. I have to say I do love a smaller Windjammer. Quick and easy to find what you are looking for and get a table. I really love Tomato Soup and have never seen it in the Windjammer but today was my lucky day it was there. It was a little chilly outside and we opted to sit outside in the sun so it was a perfect match. After eating we went to find our muster station to get that out of the way and then to register at Adventure Ocean. Once those things are out of the way I feel like I can relax. We grabbed some drinks at the Centrum Bar and walked around until the room was ready. We were happily surprised that our luggage was already there so we could get unpacked. I love the large closet that is it the junior suite. Once we got unpacked we went to walk around a bit more and wait for sail away on the helicopter pad. The one thing our youngest was so excited for was the fact that she was finally 6 and could rock climb. We grabbed socks and headed up for her first rock climbing adventure.

We were hoping to be up on the helicopter pad to go under the Sky Way Bridge but by 5:20pm we had not reached it yet and we had the early dinning.

We go back and forth on the dinning time the early dinning is just early and the late dinning is too late but we also don't want to do my time dinning as its just one more thing to remember and sometimes the lines are long. We once again said lets give the main dinning a try and if we aren't happy it will be windjammer and room service. The wait staff blew us away. They were quick with drinks and food for the kids. The food was really good as well, cooked perfect and hot. We went to have a drink after dinner and called it an early night as it had been a long day.

I went back to the room and packed the pool bag for the next day and got everyone's stuff laid out.

My youngest and I got up early and we were at the pool by 7:15ish and I expected there to be more people but there wasn't. The nice thing on a smaller ship the windjammer is right off the pool so we left our stuff for 10 minutes to walk in and get a quick breakfast that we brought back and ate at our chairs. This is also some quiet time for me to relax, I even found the bar in the back of the windjammer opens at 7am so I could grab a Bloody Mary early!

I brought clothes for my youngest as she wanted to go to Adventure Ocean pretty early. We knew the kids slide didn't open until 1pm so this was a good time for her to go play and I could relax. They also had paper and a box for kids to send letters to Santa.

On a smaller ship there is limited areas for the kids and the pools and hot tubs are small so you have to pick and choose what you decide to do and when. The water slide they have to be 46" to go alone otherwise they need someone 18 and older to go with them. Our youngest was just barely at 46" and they let her go alone. Our oldest decided to hang out in the chairs and watch on her phone so when it got a little busy we went to the Solarium.

Now most people know by 8am typically a Solarium has no chairs available and its busy but we went in there and there were plenty of chairs available and no one in the pool and 2 people in the hot tub.

By noon we were done by the pool so we picked up our youngest from Adventure Ocean and went to grab lunch. After lunch we showered and got dressed for the afternoon/early dinner. We found a bar we really liked with a good bartender so it was a nice place to hang out before dinner. We were excited to go back to the main dinning room after how good the first night was. Once again service, food and everything in the main dinning was amazing. After dinner we went to check out the shops. The girls found these animal tracking bracelets so we got a few of those. They were tired so while we got a drink to wind down for the evening they went to the room to get ready for bed.

The next day was a port day. Grand Cayman was our port of call. I was excited for this port since the last time we were there was 9 years prior on our oldest daughters first birthday. This port is a tender port so they told us we had to go to the colony club on deck 6 and get a tender ticket and we couldn't go down to the tender until our number was called. After breakfast we went to get a ticket and figured we might have to wait a bit but they gave us number 10 and they had just called for number 10. We headed down and right onto a tender boat. I have to say it was nice this time not have a stroller to get onto that tender boat. We didn't really have any plans for this port so we just got there and started walking.

We went left out of the port and found some cute shops to get some souvenirs. Of course we are in a store and my youngest needs a bathrooms. I asked the lady where the closest bathroom was and she said it was back at the port entrance but she was a so nice and said to take her to their employee bathroom. We realized after we got back on the tender that we probably should have gone right and there was a mall and other stuff which is where we went 9 years prior but the girls had already bought a bunch of stuff so we will save it for next time, hopefully won't be another 9 years! We headed back to the ship to relax a little bit.

It was a pretty low key day, lunch, pool, adventure ocean and then time to get ready for dinner. Most of our evenings were low key as we didn't do any shows. Our youngest wanted to go back to Adventure Ocean for a bit so we just sat at our favorite bar to have drinks until it was time to pick her up.

Our next day was Cozumel Mexico. We had decided we weren't getting off the boat since we had been to Cozumel 3 times in the last year and I am glad we didn't get off. We had to go into a dock further down than what we are used to and some friends we met on the cruise said there wasn't much and you had to take a taxi to get to anything decent.

I decided I would sleep in since the pool area would likely not be busy and by sleeping in I mean like 8:30am. We got up and went to get breakfast and then out to the pool area.

We spent a few hours out there and then decided we were done and wanted to get some lunch and get showered. Our youngest went to Adventure Ocean for the afternoon which gave us some time to walk around see a few things on the ship and just relax. After dinner it was back to our favorite spot for after dinner drinks to wrap up our evening.

One thing we learned on the last cruise and definitely used it this cruise is that they can use their Diamond Plus drinks at the Coffee place to get Vanilla Bean Fraps just like the ones they get from Starbucks. This is a huge hit with the kids and doesn't cost us anything else. If you aren't Diamond level yet you can use your refreshment package for the same thing.

We decided our last day we didn't want to do the pool we just wanted to sleep in and do things around the ship. We made the right call because when I woke up around 8:30am it was raining and gloomy out. Our youngest spent most of the day in Adventure Ocean, we had breakfast and lunch in the windjammer, our oldest found a comfy high back chair near a window so she could binge watch a show for the day and lets be honest I don't blame her and I should have done the same thing. We hung out at the bar most of the day with a great couple we met and just enjoyed the company.

We made one final trip to the dinning room and it was great just as it had been the entire cruise.

The kids were tired and wanted to go to the room. I stayed out for one more drink then they were calling me saying they weren't feeling well. The boat had started rocking a bit earlier in the day and seemed to get a bit rougher as the evening went on. I also needed to pack so I headed to the room. I got the kids to go to sleep since the rocking was bothering them. They have never been sick on a ship so this was new to us. I was trying to pack and could barely go back and forth as it was rocking really bad an we were on deck 10. I finally got everything packed and had to lay down. I have never been sick on a cruise but it was starting to get to me. We were traveling through a cold front that was coming into Florida. For the Tampa port you have to get into the channel and then its about 2 1/2 - 3 hours before you are actually docked so I knew once we got into the channel the water would be calm. I was dreading getting off the ship as it would be in the 30's when we got off and that is cold for us Floridians. We headed off the ship and it was freezing, I couldn't wait to get to the car! For now we only have some cruises booked for the last quarter of 2023 and we are looking for our next adventure so check back to see where we might be heading to next!