I’m going to wrap up a seven night cruise to Bermuda in one very photo filled post.  I swear we have jobs and we aren’t always on vacation, but we’ve definitely been burning through PTO days like water.

This cruise wasn’t originally on our radar, but when a couple of our friends invited us to come along we quickly agreed.  After all, we didn’t want to be the lame ones with the baby who got left behind.  Except we were kind of the lame ones with the baby who got left behind anyways.

You see, our first mistake was thinking we could keep up.  We just couldn’t.  Travel and vacations are different with a baby and we’re okay with that.  There were a lot of things we couldn’t do with a baby, for instance:

We couldn’t go cliff diving or rent mopeds or sit for an entire meal.  We couldn’t sunbathe (or sit still, for that matter).  Children in swim diapers aren’t allowed in the pools, so that was out.  There were no splash pads and Adelaide was too young for the children’s programs.

The entire week we really felt like we were just chasing Adelaide around one big not baby-proofed boat.  Jon and I ended up taking turns doing alternate things with Adelaide while the other one got to hang out with our friends.

The saving grace of the cruise was the unlimited booze package.  Yes, that’s right. Un-lim-it-ed booze.  Top shelf.  As much as we wanted.  At 9 am.  Having a frozen drink in hand before noon definitely made things better.

Don’t get me wrong, we had a great trip.  But had we planned this ourselves (without taking a big group into consideration) we would have gone on a more baby friendly ship.  The one we went on was definitely aimed toward the grandparent aged crowd, making life a bit more difficult for us parents of young kids.  So now we know.

These two.  This is what my heart looks like when it’s really full.  Is there anything better than a dad and his daughter?

I’m wearing Adelaide here in a water ring sling.  It’s basically made out of the same material as gym shorts.  You can wear your baby while you’re in the water and it dries quickly.  I wish I’d had this last summer, when she would have wanted to sit still.  This year, not so much sitting still.

Since we knew in advance that Adelaide wouldn’t be allowed in the pools, we ordered this inflatable bath tub from Amazon and it was our saving grace.  We filled it with water from the pool and plopped it in a shaded area on the deck.  We forgot to bring pool toys with us, but Adelaide was just as happy playing with a room key, complimentary shampoo bottles and plastic cups from the buffet.  Everyone that went by LOVED that we brought this along.  People would constantly come up to us commenting on Adelaide’s private pool.  Someone even came up to Jon one evening and said, “Oh you’re the dad who had the little pool today!  You win the award for best dad!”

I would like to say, for the record, that Jon said the pool was unnecessary when I spent the $12 on it.  It feels good to be right.

We love cruising, and this was definitely no exception.  Next time we’ll know to look for a more kid friendly cruise.

And bring grandma.