Cruise Diary: Life Aboard Ship
Cruise Day came at he ungodly hour of 5:30am when my rabbits, bad little bunnies, woke me up by crashing around in their cages like they were trying to make a break for it. After that I couldn't get back to sleep at all so I just sucked it up and got ready to go. Another mom from Orca gave us a ride to the cruise terminal at exactly 9am and we arrived almost 2 hours before the official Orca meeting time. After much wrangling and typical Orca disorganization we finally cleared security and (after yet more waiting) were allowed to board the ship. We immediately hooked up with two dads (Kerry and Gary) who were a lot of fun and kept us entertained. Luckily for us they were both in our travel group and the room next to ours. We spent most of the trip roaming around with them, which saved our sanity more than once.
As this was both the first time our school had tried to take kids on a cruise and the first time the cruise line had hosted kids, scheduling and planning was kind of a mess at first. We had a school schedule that didn't always fit into the ship's actual schedule, such as the plan for the teachers to take the kids for supervised swimming from 7pm to 10pm so the parents would have a break from chaperoning. All well and good except the pool closed at 8pm and the "supervising" teacher wasn't actually at the pool (we were) the whole time the kids were in the pool. Also, the first night some of our students were misbehaving (by school rules, not by ship's rules) in the teens only club so the teachers banned ALL students from going to the club, which was another feature of the cruise that was supposed to give the chaperoning parents a break. Scheduling got a bit better in subsequent days but the school wanted the kids tightly chaperoned at all times (no allowing the 14 year old kid to run back to his room without a parent walking him there and back) so parents were on duty pretty intensely for the whole cruise.
We were told to prepare for rain and extremely cold weather when we packed for the trip and we were ready with coats and mittens, hats and hot-pack hand warmers, wool socks and multiple changes of shoes. As it turned out, we were VERY lucky with the weather and just about every day was gorgeous. Even when it did rain, we seemed to miss the worst of it and only got showered on during one hike. It poured rain in Juneau but it was during our scheduled souvenir shopping so we were able to pop in and out of stores and avoid the worst of the rain. On many days we had absolutely gorgeous weather, with sun breaks and clear vistas. The days at sea were the hardest to keep the kids occupied but we took our kids to a few lectures from naturalists and park rangers, we went to the "cabaret" every night for their variety shows (usually the singing and dancing cast members but we also saw a comedian and a pianist who entertained the kids well). We also took the kids to he dining room every night for dinner rather than letting them browse the constant buffet of the Lido deck. Our kids wore suits and ties or dresses/skirts most evenings and tried many new foods they might not have otherwise tried, including pate, crab legs, and escargot. I also took my group of kids to formal afternoon tea twice. They didn't care for the tea but were quite happy with the pastries. Food and Wine Magazine sponsored a "Cooking Pavilion" where chefs did several demonstrations and Microsoft sponsored a "Digital Workshop" where people cold go learn how to make digital scrapbooks or manipulate their digital photos and so on. Unfortunately many of our school's classroom activities conflicted with scheduled on board activities but I did manage to take a couple of the kids off to few of these events. Life on board ship settled into a predictable routine that only got fouled up when the school officials tried to organize things to be any particular way as inevitably we were told one thing by one person ("Assigned seating at dinner tonight!") and something else by another ("I don't care where anyone sits as long as we're all seated.") which caused confusion at best and irritation/hurt feelings at worst. Happily, our little travel group was full of great kids and parents and generally we all got along and enjoyed each other's company in spite of any hiccups in planning or impositions of school rules.
Next time: Glacier Bay and the Mendenhall
As this was both the first time our school had tried to take kids on a cruise and the first time the cruise line had hosted kids, scheduling and planning was kind of a mess at first. We had a school schedule that didn't always fit into the ship's actual schedule, such as the plan for the teachers to take the kids for supervised swimming from 7pm to 10pm so the parents would have a break from chaperoning. All well and good except the pool closed at 8pm and the "supervising" teacher wasn't actually at the pool (we were) the whole time the kids were in the pool. Also, the first night some of our students were misbehaving (by school rules, not by ship's rules) in the teens only club so the teachers banned ALL students from going to the club, which was another feature of the cruise that was supposed to give the chaperoning parents a break. Scheduling got a bit better in subsequent days but the school wanted the kids tightly chaperoned at all times (no allowing the 14 year old kid to run back to his room without a parent walking him there and back) so parents were on duty pretty intensely for the whole cruise.
We were told to prepare for rain and extremely cold weather when we packed for the trip and we were ready with coats and mittens, hats and hot-pack hand warmers, wool socks and multiple changes of shoes. As it turned out, we were VERY lucky with the weather and just about every day was gorgeous. Even when it did rain, we seemed to miss the worst of it and only got showered on during one hike. It poured rain in Juneau but it was during our scheduled souvenir shopping so we were able to pop in and out of stores and avoid the worst of the rain. On many days we had absolutely gorgeous weather, with sun breaks and clear vistas. The days at sea were the hardest to keep the kids occupied but we took our kids to a few lectures from naturalists and park rangers, we went to the "cabaret" every night for their variety shows (usually the singing and dancing cast members but we also saw a comedian and a pianist who entertained the kids well). We also took the kids to he dining room every night for dinner rather than letting them browse the constant buffet of the Lido deck. Our kids wore suits and ties or dresses/skirts most evenings and tried many new foods they might not have otherwise tried, including pate, crab legs, and escargot. I also took my group of kids to formal afternoon tea twice. They didn't care for the tea but were quite happy with the pastries. Food and Wine Magazine sponsored a "Cooking Pavilion" where chefs did several demonstrations and Microsoft sponsored a "Digital Workshop" where people cold go learn how to make digital scrapbooks or manipulate their digital photos and so on. Unfortunately many of our school's classroom activities conflicted with scheduled on board activities but I did manage to take a couple of the kids off to few of these events. Life on board ship settled into a predictable routine that only got fouled up when the school officials tried to organize things to be any particular way as inevitably we were told one thing by one person ("Assigned seating at dinner tonight!") and something else by another ("I don't care where anyone sits as long as we're all seated.") which caused confusion at best and irritation/hurt feelings at worst. Happily, our little travel group was full of great kids and parents and generally we all got along and enjoyed each other's company in spite of any hiccups in planning or impositions of school rules.
Next time: Glacier Bay and the Mendenhall