Bahamas Cruise 2026 - Day 3 - At Sea

After all the food we had eaten & how much we had slept, we all woke up pretty early on day 3 & decided to go exercise in the gym.  Trek & I ran 1.5 miles on the track, while Lorien, Elijah, & the rest of the kids went & did weights in the weight room & used the treadmills in the air conditioned room.

After running, I went with Taya to do Zumba for an hour.  We had a blast.  It was dancing & exercise at the same time so I was feeling great for the day.

While we were all exercising, our room attendant was in our rooms cleaning them up & making cute little towel animals for us.

Once everyone was cleaned up & showered, & breakfast was eaten, we made our way to the carousel for the family photo scavenger hunt.  It was a blast.  We had to race all around the ship & take photos at all the major things on the ship.  The first 3 families to complete all the tasks won prizes.  We didn't win, but we had a blast & have some great pictures from it.

Ice skaters at the ice skating rink. . .

Playing the piano at the dueling pianos bar. . . 

Running on the track. . . 

Lifting weights in the gym. . . 

Playing air guitar at the music hall. . . 

Video: Singing "Let it Go" in front of the karaoke bar. . .

Eating sushi at the sushi restaurant. . . 

Playing basketball at the basketball court. . . 

Surfing. . . 

Dancing Gangnum Style in front of the carousel. . . 

We had a lot of laughs & enjoyed the family time together.

After the scavenger hunt, we split up to do things each person wanted to do.  Lorien, Elijah, Opa, Oma, & Tuhk all went on a "behind the scenes" food tour of the kitchens on the ship.  Lorien really really wanted to see the kitchens so when our waiter in the dining room mentioned this tour, we signed her & Elijah up for it.  They had a blast.

Some of the kiddos surfed, some rode the slides, some did rock climbing. . . I explored some more.  Taya & I got some lunch in the Windjammer buffet (I got mediterranean again).

All the boys went surfing & body boarding again.

Just before dinner, the whole family had tickets to see the play on the ship: The Wizard of Oz.  I was completely in awe at how incredible that play was.  The actors were amazing, the sets were gorgeous, & the effects were magical.  It was a fully immersive play so you felt like you were IN IT.  Dorothy flew over our heads in her bed while the tornado blew the entire audience.  My hair was flying everywhere.  When Glinda put a spell on everyone with the poppy flowers, the entire audience got showered with bubbles.  The whole play started out in black & white & turned to color as soon as they entered Oz.  The effect were crazy good.  That was one of the best plays I've ever seen in my life.

After the play got out, we had 10 minutes to head over to dinner.  It was fabulous.  The chicken parm was to die for, & my favorite part was the Italian chocolate cake. . . which wasn't cake at all, but a bowl of what looked like hot cake batter.  It was SO SO SO good.

After dinner, all the boys wanted to go rock climbing so we watched them for a while.

Video: Trek Rock Climbing

Video: Canyon Rock Climbing

Then we headed back to our favorite place to play board games as a family.  We played Dal Muti this time & everyone loved it.  Poor Tuhk had a hard time with his treats that night.  He ordered special crepes (for his food sensitivities), got it to the table with his water, then Trek accidentally spilled Tuhk's water all over everything including the cards.  Tuhk put his crepe on the table next to him & got up to get some napkins to clean it up & the worker picked up his crepe thinking he was done with it, so when he got back, his crepe was gone. (Those workers are so efficient.  We didn't even notice him come grab it or we would have stopped him).  Tuhk cleaned up the water & put down a new water, then got up to get another crepe, & another worker took his water.  Poor guy.  It was so frustrating for him, but it was really comical because there were 15 of us at these tables & NONE OF US could stop the workers fast enough.

We played until 10, then went to bed because we had an EARLY morning the next day. 

St. Thomas, here we come.

Bahamas Cruise 2026 - Day 2 - At Sea

 

Day 2 of our cruise started with sleeping in.  There are definitely advantages to not having a window in your room.  We slept in & it felt wonderful.

As we explored the ship, the room attendant always left our towels folded into the cutest little animals so I got lots of pictures of those.

We ate breakfast in the dining hall as a family, then headed over to 2 trivia games.  The first was commercial trivia & it ended up being HILARIOUS.  They found random commercials from around the world & would play the first 15 seconds of it & we had to guess what it was a commercial for.  We did terribly, but laughed SO hard when we'd find out what they were for.  The 2nd trivia game we went to was a Michael Jackson trivia game.  We thought we'd be pretty good at that one, but we were wrong.  We got a few of the answers correct, & we were proud of those few.

After that we wandered down the mall area of the ship . . . 

where they were having a "Battle of the Sexes" game show, & of course, they picked me as the "mom" on the female team.  It was SO embarrassing, but my kids were there cheering me on the entire time & that was cute.  I made the worst paper airplane you've ever seen & totally lost that round for our team.  But we rocked the number challenge (where I lead each person on where to stand) & the hula hooping (we had a 4th grade hula hoop champion on our team.).  There were a few other challenges, but overall the boys ended up winning.  But it was cute & it was fun having the whole family cheering me on.

Video: Battle of the Sexes - Dani's Paper Airplane FAIL

After the game show, we all split up to do what we wanted.  Some of us went surfing/boogie boarding, some went on water slides.  I walked around the garden & had some ice cream on the pool deck while I watched the kids.  I ate lunch at the Mediterranean place.  I ate there a lot.  It was delicious!  I got the greek bowls with rice, chicken, veggies, & tzatziki sauce.  Yum. 

Videos: Boogie Boarding & Surfing - Trek & Taya

After hanging out in the sun for a bit, we all went & took some naps which was heavenly.  After naps, Taya, Craiger, & I attended a Latin dancing workshop which was fun, then we headed to a Harry Potter trivia game.  We totally rocked it.  We took 2nd place!  It was pretty awesome.

After trivia, we went back to our rooms to dress up for our "formal night" dinner.  We were celebrating Trek's retirement from the Air Force, our 25th anniversary, & Taya's graduation.  The whole family dressed up, including Trek's parents & brothers.  It was so nice.

Dinner was delicious (the squash soup was SO GOOD).  We talked about our many adventures in the air force & during our marriage.  Oma brought little American flags for the table & Air Force napkins which was so cute.  It was a lovely night with lots of amazing food.

Video: Anniversary Dinner

After dinner, we changed into regular clothes & met up on the pool deck to enjoy ice cream & board games.

We played a LOT of chameleon.  It was kind of hilarious because Opa & Oma just didn't quite understand the rules.  The kids were teaming up with them trying to help which was so cute.  I loved it when Opa said, "I don't know what you're talking about.  There aren't any numbers on the card, just a lizard!"  We died laughing.  He was the chameleon that round.  I love playing games with family.

We all went to bed around 10:30.  Day 3 would also be a day at sea so we were ready for more fun on the ship.

Bahamas Cruise 2026 - Day 1 - Boarding the Ship

 

Saturday morning we got up, packed our things, & was out of the airbnb by 9am.  We made a quick stop at McDonalds for breakfast & drove 4 hours to Miami. 

We've never really explored much of Florida besides Disney so driving down to Miami was nice until we hit the city.  The car rental people told us to fill up right before taking the car back to avoid fees so we planned to fill up as we came into the city.  We couldn't find a single gas station anywhere.  We were flabbergasted.  There was NO GAS in the city.  We decided just to turn it in anyway & see how much the fees would be, so we drove to the Sixt return & they told us they would charge us $20 per gallon if we didn't fill up the tank which was way more than what we actually paid for the rental in the first place.

The nearest gas station was over 30 minutes away.  It was literally worst case scenario for us.  There were road closures & one way streets all over the place & we just kept getting lost.  40 minutes later, we found our way to the nearest gas station & paid $5 per gallon to fill up the tank (which wasn't terrible).  Then we had to fight all the traffic, road closures, & one way streets back to the Sixt station, but we made it.

We grabbed a taxi & had him take us to our port where we would board the ship.  We met up with Lorien & Elijah there, dropped off our luggage, & made our way onto "The Icon of the Seas."

The very first thing we did was find both of the ice cream stations on the ship.  We at 3 ice cream cones in the first 30 minutes of being on board.  We had a family goal of eating 150 ice creams during our week on the boat.  We didn't know if we could do it, but thanks to Canyon, we pulled through.  I ate a grand total of 17 ice cream cones in my week (& that was enough for me).  Trek, Elijah, & Bladen all had a few less than me. . . Taya & Lorien were in the 30 range, but Canyon carried the team with 61 ice cream cones on his own.

Video: Ice Cream Stats from our cruise

We explored the ship for a bit.  The kids were so excited about the 6 water slides, the many pools & hot tubs, the rock climbing wall, the ice skating rink, surfing, & more.  It was the perfect ship for families.

We eventually got our luggage & got into our staterooms later in the afternoon.  Lorien, Elijah, Craiger, & Bladen all had one room.  Trek & I, Taya, & Canyon were in the other room.  They were right next to each other so we could visit each others rooms anytime we wanted.

The first thing Taya found on the ship was the crepe shop.  I think she ate over 30 crepes that week.  They were SO SO SO good.

The kids enjoyed all the shops, gardens, & fun things to do & look at.

When 5:00 rolled around, we met up with everyone for dinner in the main dining room.  Trek's parents were there, as were his brother Tuhk, & his brother Talon with his family.  Talon's wife's parents also came.  It was really fun to have everyone on board with us.  We all got each dinner together every night.  It was great.  The food was amazing.  My favorite thing I ate the entire trip was the peanut caramel bars.  I had one for dinner, then found more at the windjammer buffet later that night.  When everyone else was eating ice cream sundaes, I was pigging out on these.  SO GOOD.

The sunsets on the boat were always gorgeous.  We loved being out on the deck at night.  The weather was beautiful & the views were spectacular.

We loved the "Dueling Piano" show.  2 Pianists would take requests & just play their pianos & sing.  It turned into a sing along & we had SO MUCH FUN with it.

Video: Dueling Pianos Show Sing Along

After the show, we went back to our bedrooms & played some boardgames as a family.  Some of us went to bed, but Trek, Bladen, & Canyon went to the balloon drop at midnight.  They got a kick out of all the balloon falling.

Video: Balloon Drop - Welcome Aboard Party

It was a great 1st day on our cruise.