Bon Voyage!

We spent a perfectly lovely Shabbat at the Doubletree in Melbourne, FL.  The rain cleared up, leaving us beautiful beach weather. JoJo invested in two lounge chairs and an umbrella, and we were set for the day.  We swam, we ate, we swam some more, we slept.  It was a truly relaxing family day.  

The boys all play in the water

On Sunday we breakfasted at The Blueberry Muffin and impatiently headed off to Port Canaveral.  The only "good" thing about Cocoa Beach was it afforded us the first glimpse of the Freedom of the Seas--beautiful!  Henry had arranged for us to have priority in boarding, we breezed through security and all crossed the gangplank together.  Talk about excitement!  We were all bouncing.

We quickly located staterooms 8620 and 8622 and fell in love.  They were a good size, well designed and, best of all, had adjoining balconies!  We got the best rooms by far (our balconies jutted about just a bit to line up with the Solarium above).  We did some exploring and snacking but made certain to show up on time and in the right place for our muster drill, something they take very seriously.  We returned to our rooms, broke open the champagne and prepared to sail away.

Steven enjoying the view from our balcony

As we made our way out of the harbor, we waved and smiled to people on shore, at water-side restaurants and on other ships and boats. JoJo managed to get an entire boat to "who-hoo" back.  We did some more exploring, unpacked our bags and headed down to dinner.  The dining room was beautiful, but the best hing in it was Mervyn, our waiter par excellence.  Not only did he take such good care of us, he made certain we knew what not to miss and steered us toward the best of everything.  The food was yummy, not overboard (pun intended) with loads of vegetarian options. We all left happy.  We tried to find the parade on the Promenade but Romi was done in. When we returned to our stateroom (which Romi referred to as our "hotel" all week) Jacquline had opened the bunk and Romi had a blast scurrying up and down the ladder.  In the end, however, he decided his bunk was too scary and slept in our very comfortable king-sized bed, with the ocean rocking us all to a good-night's sleep.