Watch Meteors?!

Last minute decision to try to watch the meteor shower that is suppose to be prime viewing this weekend, thanks for this idea from a friend. We wanted to get out of the Atlanta city lights and get a better view.  We love Helen and decided to go there for the night.  We stayed at a very cute set of condos on the river, Bavarian Brook condos. It's fun to hang out on the private balcony and watch the tubers float by.  We enjoyed our day strolling around Helen, checking out the little magic shop we always visit and getting a silly magic trick for M and going to a park.  We like to eat at one of the many great restaurants by the river, Saturdays lunch was at Troll Tavern. We always stop by one of the candy kitchens which are both great. We went to Hansel and Gretel's this time.  People watching is always fun too.  Our dinner was at this great German restaurant, with a live accordion player, he's always there when we've been there and very fun and inter active with the people.

The prime viewing time for the meteor shower was supposed to be after 11:45pm.  We looked very strange I'm sure with two parents, an elementary aged child and a baby in a stroller walking up and down Edelwiss Strauss looking for the best view.  There is was midnight and we are standing in a parking lot looking up into the sky, we watched for maybe 45 minutes and saw many great bright meteors.  We were all tired and called it a night.

Sunday we went to Unicoi park and walked up to see Anna Ruby Falls, its actually two falls next to each other. It's very pretty and worth the half mile walk up there, it's paved so we pushed the stroller. A great cardio workout.
We ate lunch at International Cafe by the river and watched more tubers and then headed home.

It was a great quick trip to end the summer before school started again.  Funny to think E is only 3 1/2 months and has been to Florida twice, Buffalo once and Helen already.  Full blast family!

Life's a Breeze

Spring break 2013 we went on the Carnival Breeze to the Caribbean. We flew into Miami the day before the ship set sail. We stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel, it was very nice and a perfect location.  We were trying to find a place for dinner that was child friendly and found the Bayside Marketplace, right down the street.  In the Intercontinental has some restaurants but they didn't look very family friendly. They were very fancy and the people would probably not deal well with our screaming baby throwing food all over the floor.  The Bayside Marketplace was great, perfect family friendly area, seemed pretty safe and had nice restaurants and a lot of fun shopping, music, petting zoo for kids and more. We loved the view from our room in the Intercontinental. It was on the 26th floor and looking out at the water. And we could see the ships come in.

 

 

Sunday we took a shuttle to the port to get checked in on the ship. With priority boarding it was great, no line, we walked right on. The ship was awesome looking, I feel it looks a lot more classic, more pretty than the Liberty or Fascination that we were on before.  Those had a more Vegas style look to me, more tacky.  Our room was awesome, roomy with couch (extra single bed), coffee table and vanity, balcony and nice big bath with jet tub and two sinks.  We are spoiled and would be hard to stay in a smaller room now.

 

Of first day at sea was nice and we were at the WaterWorks water park enjoying the water slides and cooling off when announcements over the ship were saying that their was a medical emergency and we would need to stop at Nassau to get this person to a hospital.  As the day went on the itinerary had changed and we would be reversing our stops and going to Nassau first and staying there for 4-5 hours in the late afternoon/evening.  All the excursions would be changed since we were originally going to Nassau our last stop and for the entire day.  We had an excursion at Atlantis planned with tour of the resort and aquarium, lunch then the rest of the day at their water park.  There was no rush to get to the shore excursion desk knowing it was be mobbed with negative angry people.  We went later and found out our Atlantis excursion was cancelled and money was totally refunded.  We were ok with that, little disappointed but we plan to go back another time and will do it all then.  B and I had been there before and knew it was a great place to go back to and bring the kids, so another time...

We ended up hanging around the port of Nassau and going to Senior Frogs, eating, having drinks and just enjoying ourselves. There were other ships at port also, we saw a Disney ship, two other Carnival ships and Royal Caribbean ship.

 

 



This is our ship the Breeze in the background. The next day was stopping at Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Since we weren't going to Atlantis we definitely wanted to do something in Jamaica.  We decided on going to Paradise Beach, we always book our excursions through Carnival and good thing because in the instance of us not making it to Nassau like we were supposed to our money was refunded.  If we would have booked through another tour company I'm not sure we would have gotten our money back. Plus also we look for safe excursions especially since we have the kids with us. It rained for a little bit in the morning in Jamaica but passed quickly and then turned out to be a nice day. Paradise Beach was a 10 min ride by shuttle and we were staring directly at our ship. It worked out to be a fun excursion, there was drinks including rum punch and beer for adults and lunch included. The beach was nice, their was a DJ playing music and organized volleyball games, drinking contests and dancing. We didn't go to the shopping area but it was in walking distance. Of all the islands I've been too the Jamaican people beg for tips for everything, far more than anywhere else and for any job they do. Example, the lady who walked us from the beach to the shuttle bus, 100 yards or so was begging for tips.

 

 

 

We spent about a few hours there and then back on the boat for dinner. We chose to have anytime dining, for us with E being so young it worked best. One thing that I really liked about the dining room we were in on the Breeze is that we were not all packed into one long rectangular table.  We did sit at a round table many nights when we had 6 in our group. Instead of those long cafeteria tables where 12 people all sit smashed in elbow to elbow this dining room has table of 2, 4 or 6 and they are placed close to each other but not push together as one, it gives so much more room to move and eat.  It worked out so great for us especially with a baby in a high chair. I wonder if all dining rooms are setup this way on the Breeze or only because we were in anytime dining. 

 

Our next day was at sea all day. One reason we wanted to go on the Breeze was to go on the ropes course. There is a Sports complex on the 12 level, top of the ship. It was so windy for the last couple days and you could feel it with the ship rocking a little. It was too windy and the SkyCourse was closed every time we looked up there.  We played mini golf which had a fun 9 hole course. There was also ping pong, pool tables, foosball, running track, basketball/soccer and exercise machines up on that Sportsquare. I love this ship so many things to do for the whole family.

 







 

The activities and dinner menus etc were all confusing and switched around because of our itinerary change. We missed the captain dinner night with lobster. Darn! We look forward to that dinner night. Since we chose anytime dining we didn't sit at the same table with the same wait staff each night.  But all the staff; waiters, hostesses etc were so great with E, getting us anything we needed and paying so much attention to him. It's nice when we are eating at another table and our waiter/hostesses from the previous nights remember us by name and come over to say hi to E. We did notice that there isn't whole milk in those individual boxes at the buffet breakfasts or room service, but it seemed if we asked for whole and gave them a bottle to fill they could. Skim and 2% were available in those little milk cartons.  We always have a container of Cherrios or Kix for E to snack on throughout the day and there was Cherrios available. We were looking for the regular yellow box of Cherrios and not honey nut, I don't like to feed him the extra sugar.  The regular yellow boxes were at each breakfast and easy to get. While we were eating in the buffets having the stroller was easiest.  There was high chairs but we usually ate out by the pool on lido deck and stroller worked perfectly. At dinner in the dining rooms we used their high chairs and they had the tray so no need for the disposable place mats I bought.  They were clean and brought right over to use immediately after getting seated.

 

 

We were lucky to have Grandma with us and she babysat a few nights. M loved the 9-11 year old Camp Carnival programs. They did scavenger hunts, making towel animals, paper airplane contests, video games, dance parties etc.  She went to a few of the night owl parties they had at night after dinner. The one party was till 3am, she loved it. Those nights we went down to the casino, I love playing roulette. I noticed from the last couple Carnival Cruises we were on that there isn't many waiters around to get drink orders especially in the casino.  That was disappointing because I wanted to stay at the table I was at and didn't want to leave to get a drink.  I'm not sure if it's just on the Breeze or its changed on all ships but the wait staff service has changed since the years past ships we were on.

 

Our last stop and one of my favorites is Grand Turk. The cruise center at this port is awesome, so much to do, gorgeous beach and restaurants you really don't have to leave the cruise center to enjoy an entire day.  The water is the prettiest color, bluish green and my photos just don't do it justice.  We enjoyed the day at the beach, we rented a tent/shade that went over 2 lounge chairs, it was well worth the twenty bucks.  You could also rent snorkel gear, floaties and more.

 

 

 

Our last day at sea we enjoyed the Waterworks waterpark and ropes course. M went around the ropes course 7-8 times. I walked the exercise track with the stroller, it was so nice up there on the top level of the ship. The Waterworks was great for all age kids. M loved the water slides and I did too. E loved sitting in the water splashing around watching the kids.

 

  We love cruising and are already planning another possibly next year.