In 2016, I went on my very first cruise. Since then, I have gone on two more cruises in 2019 and in 2023. On the I took in 2016, I traveled with my mom and dad, my little sister, and my Mimi and Granddaddy. This cruise was a Royal Caribbean ship and it was called Freedom of the Seas. The Freedom of the Seas sailed out of Florida and went to Labadie, Haiti; Georgetown, Grand Cayman; Falmouth Jamaica; and Cozumel, Mexico. This was a seven-day cruise that I will never forget especially because it was the first time I went out of the United States.
I got to have so many of my firsts during this vacation. In Falmouth, Jamaica my dad and I rode a buggy up to the top of a mountain and did a series of three different zip lines. The last zip line actually went over the ocean and my mom could see us from the beach. In Cozumel, Mexico I went snorkeling with turtles and stingrays. On that excursion, I went with my dad and little sister. During our day in Georgetown, Grand Cayman we went jet skiing. My dad took my sister for thirty minutes and then took me for thirty minutes since neither of us could drive yet. Labadie, Haiti was my mom’s favorite because we got to have a relaxing beach day. We reserved a spot in a private beach area and had a nice quiet day.
As you can imagine, going to four different places in just seven days seems like a lot. Each place we stopped at, we got a full day to spend there. There was a certain time we were allowed to get off the ship and a time we had to be back on the ship. The other three days where we weren’t on islands were called sea days. Sea days consisted of hanging out on the ship and really crowded pools. On sea days there were various types of shows and sports tournaments. The shows for example, were comedy performers, diving acts, and ice skating performances. The sports tournaments included dodgeball, basketball, volleyball, water polo, soccer, and even surfing on the Wave Rider.
One sea day in particular my sister and I signed up for the 8-12 age group for the soccer tournament. My dad also signed himself up for water polo. Since we signed up individually we were just placed on a team. Luckily they saw we had the same last name and put us the same team! Our team had really skilled players on it so we ended up winning all of our games. We played three games in total that day. Playing soccer on the cruise ship felt super weird. It wasn’t like the ball was rolling by itself or anything but if I looked out to the ocean while I was running I felt so dizzy. Playing soccer on the cruise ship was a memory I’ll never forget. It was so thrilling playing up there on the top deck, with the wind blowing looking over the ship and the ocean.