It's always a bittersweet moment, to pull back the stateroom curtains and find yourself back where you started. We had returned to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I snapped a few photos, then scrambled to get ready and pack up our remaining items.

On the last day of our Christmas Cruise, we docked in St. Maarten. We've been to St. Maarten many times over the years, and it's a great port of call. This was also the excursion that Stove was the most excited for. He booked The Best Catamaran Day Sail in St. Maarten through Viator, and it had rave reviews.

On Day 6, we docked in Kingstown, St. Vincent. We did not have an excursion booked, but Aaron and I had read that we could take a water taxi to Villa Beach.

St. Vincent is another port that we visited for the first time on this cruise. Since we've done so many Caribbean cruises over the years, it's rare that we visit a new port of call, which is why this Southern Caribbean itinerary was interesting to us - three new ports of call!

On Day 5, we docked in Scarborough, Tobago. Today, we had an excursion planned that Stove booked through Viator - Tobago Bucco Reef Glass Bottom Boat Tour.

I asked Aaron if he wanted to go up to the Windjammer to get breakfast before we left the ship, but he said he wasn't really hungry. Big mistake. We should've gotten breakfast.

On Day 4 of our Southern Caribbean Cruise on Jewel of the Seas, we docked in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

We ate breakfast in the main dining room this morning. The host recognized Stove and seated us at our own table of six. Throughout breakfast, several different dining room managers came over to our table to ask us how we liked our table last night. I'm not sure what Stove said or did to get this celebrity treatment, but I'm not sure I want to know.

On Christmas morning, we docked in Bridgetown, Barbados. We had made plans to meet for breakfast in the main dining room at 9AM, but discovered that morning that the dining room closed at 9AM. Judy and Stove "just happened" to be ready early and went to the MDR for breakfast. The rest of us headed up to the Windjammer.

While I wish there was more variety, there were some decent breakfast options in the Windjammer. I liked the breakfast hash and omelets (if the line isn't too crazy).

The interesting thing about Embarkation in San Juan is that it was very late. I believe the earliest possible check-in time was 12:30 PM. Aaron and I, as well as Stove and Judy had a 1:30 PM port arrival time. Rachel and Landon waited until like two weeks before the cruise, so they had a 3:30 PM check-in time. Rachel and I briefly looked into getting The Key, but it didn't seem like that great of a value, and we couldn't book it for six guest by the time we looked into it, anyway.

We had a 2PM checkout time at Aloft, so we weren't in a hurry to get up and get ready. Except for Landon who was stir crazy and I guess hungry... so he and Rachel set out on a mile walk to get a bagel, while Aaron and I stayed in the room and watched a totally unhinged adaptation of A Christmas Carol on BET (you know I had to look it up.... it's Christmas Deja Vu).

Also, our bag finally arrived! That morning, I got the notification on the Delta app that our suitcase had arrived. I checked the AirTag which confirmed. It took a few hours after that for our bag to make it to the hotel. Stove was out and about, so he volunteered to hunt it down. It wasn't at the front desk, but he's persistent... he walked around and found a room marked "Luggage Room," went inside and took the bag. Then an hour later, we got a call to the room from the front desk saying that they had my bag.... 

It's the holiday season! Many associate the Christmas holiday with cozying up by the fire, but for me, there's no better way to spend Christmas Day than in a tropical location (as the late Jimmy Buffet sang, hang your stocking on a coconut tree). My family, a.k.a. the Shinglebells, set sail on our first Christmas Cruise in 2009 (when I was 18, and my sister, Rachel, was 16 years old), and we had such a wonderful experience that we have cruised over Christmas every year since (with the exception of 2020 for obvious reasons).

Over the past (almost) fifteen years of Christmas Cruising, we've spent the holiday on five different cruise lines (Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian, Princess, and Celebrity), on small and large ships (ranging in size from the 670-passenger Pacific Princess to the mega-ship Harmony of the Seas) to a variety of warm-weather ports of call. There's nowhere I'd rather spend the Christmas holiday than out at sea. I hope that I can share my experiences so that you can determine if cruising over the holiday would be a good fit for your family!

Shinglebells Christmas on Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas, 2011

I've cruised over Christmas for nearly half of my life, so cruising definitely feels like Christmas to me. However, whether or not it would feel like Christmas on a cruise ship was a question that we had before our first Christmas Cruise. Each cruise lines celebrate the holiday differently, but all cruise lines that I've sailed on over Christmas have decorated the ship and include special holiday programming.

Sailing on Disney Cruise Line over the holidays has always been a dream of mine, but I didn't expect it to become a reality anytime soon due to the popularity of DCL and the astronomical holiday prices. However, we lucked out with a discounted Cast Member fare which actually made the Disney Fantasy our most affordable option over New Year's. I really wish that they had left the Christmas decorations up for the week, but I understand that they have to schedule decoration removal based on the availability of the shoreside teams. Maybe one day I'll get to go on a Merrytime Cruise and experience the ship's Christmas decor!

I first sailed on the Disney Fantasy in 2014, so it was interesting to see how the cruise compares nearly a decade later.

The rating system is based on ten components of a cruise vacation which I find important - itinerary, ship novelties, pools, activities, dining, bars and lounges, service, design and aesthetics, and stateroom.

Glad I Did/Wish I Did posts are a fun way for me to quickly share with others what worked and what didn't. It's been really helpful for us to refer back to over the years when preparing for our next cruise.

Glad I decorated our Stateroom Doors

Door decorations are very popular on Disney Cruise Line, and I'm always glad to partake. In the past, I've printed the door decorations onto magnetic sheets. This time, I made the door decorations out of metallic cardstock because I wanted Mickey's hat and shorts to be shiny and festive for New Year's. To magnetize them, I used super strong Neodymium magnets that I stuck to the paper with double-sided removable glue dots which ended up sticking to the door much better than the magnetic sheets. Because I went with fancy paper, I wouldn't say this is a cheaper way of making magnets than with the magnetic sheets, but at least this way I can reuse the magnets for our next cruise door decor.

Good morning from Cozumel! Thankfully, the weather was looking much nicer than it had been on our Christmas Cruise just a week earlier.

I spotted a Royal Caribbean ship approaching in the distance. I think they were headed to the International Pier.

We were docking at Punta Langosta Cruise Terminal which is the older, smaller cruise ship pier in Cozumel. Disney ships typically dock at Punta Langosta. The International Pier (where we docked on the Summit) is located farther south.


We were scheduled to dock at 8:45, and planned to disembark immediately so that we could beat the crowds to the beach.

Our sailing on the Celebrity Summit was our first ever Christmas Cruise with Aaron's parents. It was also Aaron's parents' first ever cruise. We wanted to give them a taste of cruising with a 5-day itinerary. Aaron's parents are Catholic and wanted to attend Catholic Mass on Christmas, so we chose to sail with Celebrity because it is one of a few cruise lines that guarantees a Catholic Priest on its Christmas sailings.

This was also my first cruise on Celebrity. I am a Diamond Crown & Anchor Club Member on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, and I was excited to sail on RCCL's "more sophisticated" sister line. Also, Celebrity matched my Diamond status as Elite Captain's Club, so I was able to experience some loyalty perks, despite this being my first Celebrity cruise.

The rating system is based on ten nine (you'll see) components of a cruise vacation which I find important - itinerary, ship novelties, pools, activities, dining, bars and lounges, service, design and aesthetics, and stateroom.

I've found that Glad I Did/Wish I did posts are a great way to quickly share with others what worked and what didn't on our cruise. They're also really helpful to refer back to over the years when preparing for our next cruise.

Glad I did NOT bid on a Stateroom Upgrade

I was very tempted to bid on a stateroom upgrade. There were Concierge Class upgrade bids starting at $100 per person. However, after some research on the Concierge Class, I learned that there wasn't a big incentive to upgrade to Concierge Class on the Celebrity Millennium Series ships. The stateroom is no larger than a standard stateroom. The only extra features are a Celebrity embossed key holder and an "Exclusive Welcome Aboard Concierge Class Lunch" (we actually would have enjoyed that lunch). Also, I had selected a neighboring stateroom with Aaron's parents. I would have bid to upgrade Aaron's parents as well, but there was no guarantee that our rooms would still be next to one another, and there was also a risk that one stateroom would get upgraded while the other would not. It's a risk that I've taken with my family in the past, but give that it was Aaron's parents first cruise, I didn't want to accidentally get our staterooms moved to opposite ends of the ship.

 Sad day - departure day! On December 27, we arrived back in Miami.

There was a thick fog over Biscayne Bay.


We were once again docked next to the Scarlet Lady which was also sailing 5-night voyages.

Our fifth and final day of the cruise was at sea. Unfortunately, it was another gloomy day - so much for hanging out by the pool!

We went to lunch in the Cosmopolitan Dining Room at noon. It was only open for lunch from 12:00 - 1:30 PM.

I realized that this was a good opportunity to get photos of the dining room. Our table was on the fifth floor (upper dining room level), so we didn't have a good view of the center of the dining room.

I think the dining room looks much better during the day than at night, but perhaps that's only because we were seated on the dimly lit upper level.

Day 3 of our cruise was Christmas Eve. We arrived in Cozumel bright (errr cloudy) and early at 7:00 AM. We docked at the International Pier with the Adventure of the Seas.

We sailed on Adventure of the Seas for our second Shinglebells Christmas Cruise. It's also the first cruise that I blogged about!


We headed to the Cosmopolitan Dining Room for breakfast as soon as it opened at 7:30 and were greeted by a friendly face - Dipo, our server at dinner! He sat us at a table by the window in his section.

On our first sea day, we woke up to cloudy, drizzly weather.

We had planned to eat breakfast in the dining room at 9:30, but realized too late that we had confused the breakfast time with the Ocean View Cafe. The dining room was only open for breakfast from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM. Ocean View Cafe was open for breakfast from 6:30 AM to 11:00 AM (includes "continental breakfast," "breakfast buffet," and "late breakfast").

So back to the buffet we went.

Okay, so this post is very delayed, and it was scheduled to be posted the very weekend that future cruises were canceled, and some cruisers realized they would be quarantined on their ship for much longer than their cruise itinerary was planned. So out of respect for what was happening, I didn't post. But, it's now been over five months, and I think it's about time to reminisce on the good days of cruising.

Last day! Rachel and I had a fun and active morning planned.

Like this shot? You can purchase a print from my Society6 shop!

On Day 6 of our Harmony of the Seas cruise, we were back in Cozumel - this time as originally scheduled. Once again, no plans to leave the ship!


Rachel and I went to work out this morning. The gym was the least crowded I had seen it. I had plenty of room in the free weights area, and there was no wait for the Smith machine.

We had to hurry and finish our workout because we had made plans with Judy and Stove to eat breakfast at Johnny Rockets. The breakfast at Johnny Rockets is actually not included in the specialty dining package - it's free for everyone on the ship! A nice upgrade to the Windjammer, that's for sure.

Rise and shine, it's our first sea day!  We could see land in the distance as we sailed south all day -


Aaron was pretty nervous about seasickness, so he took a Dramamine every morning.  He also brought along Gin-Gins - ginger candies are a natural way to cure seasickness.  But the entire, cruise, he never got sick!


We went to Triton's for brunch that morning.