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.

Rachel was suffering from "early risers' syndrome" and was finding it impossible to sleep in, so she left the room early that morning to read on the pool deck. She was amused by all of the intense speed walkers around the walking track on the 10th deck. I'll note now that even though it's small (13 laps for one nautical mile), it's much more efficient than other ships which have the track surrounded by deck chairs. This way, it's continuous circulation, and you can run or walk at any time of the day without worrying about people's chairs intruding on the track or slow people in swimsuits getting in your way.

I, on the other hand, still had not quite adjusted my sleeping schedule from post-final-review-recovery (when you go to bed at 3 AM and wake up at noon).

Since we had 17 days on the ship, we didn't feel like we were in a rush to get out and do something. The first day of our cruise last year ended up being a recovery day for us, too, but it was nice to be able to take our time doing things, relax a little, and not worry about missing out (plus, it was a small ship, so what were we really missing out on?). We were boring and spent a good bit of our day in our stateroom watching movies and The Love Boat.


We were also pleased to learn that our balcony was easily accessible. I had read stories about the forward balcony doors being difficult to open, but we didn't have a problem. The Pacific Ocean was peaceful, so it was enjoyable to spend time out on the balcony with a light breeze.

Rachel and I spent the morning of our first sea day in bed catching up on some much-needed sleep.  Dad called our room at 9:30 in the morning.

Dad - "Hey!  What are you up to?"
Rachel - "Sleeping!  It's 9:30 AM!"
Dad - "I'm going to get us tickets for the ice show.  What time would you like to go?  3:30 or 5:00?  Also, we can go today or on the day we're in St. Maarten."
Rachel - "Uhhhh... 5:00 today is good."

We realized that we were sailing along with the Carnival Breeze.



I hung our Clemson flag on the balcony so that all of the dolphins who happened to swim by would know that we were Tigers.

This post is a chapter of my 2013 Royal Princess Christmas Cruise Photo Review.

This cruise review was originally published on Cruise Critic beginning January 3, 2014.  You can read the original review here.

December 24, 2013 - At Sea

So if you have ever been on a cruise before, you probably know that "a relaxing day at sea day" really means "wake up painfully early and find a deck chair." Rachel and I were a little late to the game, parking our butts in pool chairs at 9:30. The chair hogs were out in full force...



Great ideas they have, reserving chairs with their standardized cruise-line issued towels.

The next morning, we woke up in beautiful St. Thomas! We are never off to an early start... our idea of vacation doesn't involve waking up early (for Rachel and me, anyway... Dad's always out late and up early. The guy doesn't sleep!)