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A Roe Cruising Christmas

by - edited

Never before had we gone on a family vacation over Christmas. The last time Mark & I had been on a cruise was 27 years ago, and we can hardly remember anything about it. So when we started planning this Christmas Cruise two years ago, we really did not know what to expect. It turned out better than we could have imagined!!

There were 19 of us - our family and several extended family members.

Here's the whole gang!

The only one who couldn't go was our daughter-in-law, Alice, because she's pregnant with twins and because of the zika virus in the islands.

We sailed out of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on the Royal Carribbean's Adventure of the Seas ship, which was more massive than we could have imagined! The ship was beautiful, decorated for Christmas, with a promenade of shops, two pools, a water slide, game rooms, a casino, restaurants, etc. It was like living at a mall on water!

From San Juan, we stopped at 4 ports during the week: first, St. Thomas, then St. Kitts, then south to Curacao, and lastly Aruba and back to San Juan. Mark and the kids got off at every port and went to the beach and did some sightseeing.

One of the gorgeous beaches

Ryan being artsy on the beach

I got off in 2 ports, my favorite being Aruba. I definitely want to go back there someday.

An aloe factory in Aruba

Mark and me in Aruba

It was nice for me to have two quiet days to myself to read, lay by the pool, go to the spa and get a massage and a facial with Elemis products, since I already like their products on QVC.

Of course, the staff was terrific, and the food was amazing with more variety than I had ever seen before!

The cousins table at one of our amazing dinners

I played bingo one day on the ship and won! That never happens. But the best part was all of us just being together!! No matter what we all chose to do during the day, we all met up at dinnertime filling up two large tables, talking and laughing until they would kick us out each night! It was nice to have casual dinners, and it was fun to get dressed up for some of the dinners as well.

Elizabeth on the left, my niece Lexi in the middle, and me on Christmas Day

It was a different kind of Christmas than what we are used to, but we would much rather give our kids memory-making experiences than gifts that get harder to choose each year now that they are grown.