Mighty Magnus Makes A Wish: Disembarking and Going Home

 We had to get up bright and early on our last day. I was actually awakened by a loud beeping noise and when I looked out our window I saw that we had arrived in Ft Lauderdale and the gangplank was being attached to the ship from the dock. It was a rainy and dreary day, perfect for our moods of having to leave our wonderful and fun vacation. We all got up and ready quickly to go eat breakfast in the dining room one last time.

We were all tired and sad to be leaving. At breakfast we reminded them of our happy game and about the long lines of traveling and being patient and waiting nicely. 

We headed back to our room for a final sweep and to grab all of our stuff. I quickly snapped some photos of our rooms because I didn't get any great ones from the trip. And I forgot to take a photo of the teeny tiny bathrooms and showers.

 It was so nice to have our rooms connected.

We also picked up our cute photos.

We headed back to the dining room to wait our turn to be called off the ship. 

 It took awhile, but we finally got off and went to find our luggage. Out of our ten bags we couldn't find one, so we had to search for it until we found it in the "untagged" areas. Our tag must have fallen off. I was glad we found it though because it was the bag with all of our souvenirs in it! We waited in a long line for customs and finally got outside to the cab line. We took a big van cab to the airport and since we were so early we had to wait a couple hours before we could check in to our flight. The kids didn't mind, they played their iPads for hours and never got bored. 

We were finally able to go check in to our flight, get our boarding passes, and check our bags, so we waited in another long line to do that. It was so nice to get rid of our heavy bags and just have our little carry-ons!

 Waiting in line...

 We had to wait to go through security as well, so we waited another hour and then finally headed through security and found our terminal. Since we were still pretty early for our flight we staked out all of the comfy chairs with chargers attached to them. Every time someone would leave one of the kids would run and grab it until we had a whole bank of chairs to ourselves. We got lunch and waited some more.

Finally I thought it should be time for us to board, but we still hadn't heard them call our flight. I went to see at the terminal and realized that everyone had boarded and they were about to close the door. We didn't hear it being called! I ran back and we hurry and grabbed everything and rushed to get on the plane. It was PACKED and there was literally not one seat together. As we walked down the rows I would just put a kid in any empty seat I could find. I didn't really want Magnus to be alone and this super nice guy moved so I could sit by him. So glad there are still thoughtful people in this world!

 We flew in to Chicago and had a very uneventful flight. Oh my goodness, those ipads that the kids got for Christmas were the best gift they could have ever gotten. Chicago was so pretty as we flew in, I couldn't help taking so many photos.

 We had a very short layover and actually had to rush to grab the kids some McDonald's, eat quickly, charge electronics, and hop on our next plane to go to Salt Lake. We were the last ones on again and it was packed, again. Andy was able to sit by Magnus, and Jonah and I were able to sit by each other as well. I made him trade with Laylah halfway through so Laylah and I could watch a movie together on my laptop. She doesn't have an ipad and her ipod died halfway through the flight.

We arrived in Salt Lake and had to wait a bit for our luggage to be unloaded. It was FREEZING outside!

 Someone was very sleepy from our long day of travel. Actually, everyone was tired. Andy's parent's picked us up and took us home. While it was nice to be home, we had the most amazing trip ever and such a wonderful time. We will never forget Mighty Magnus' Wish trip! 

Thank you, Make A Wish!!

Mighty Magnus Makes A Wish: Last Day At Sea

Our final day at sea! Sadness!! 

We all slept in on Friday morning and when the kids finally got up they headed right to breakfast with Andy. I went and did a spin class at the gym (don't worry, it only cost $14?!!? And the teacher was NOT good. Oh well, I still got a great workout doing my own thing.) 

Afterwards I went and got ready and then went and ate breakfast by myself. That was a little weird. The kids had gone to the arcade with Andy to use up the rest of their arcade credits. 

As part of our Make A Wish privileges, our hostess had set up a private bridge tour and a meeting with the captain of the ship! That was such a cool experience! Hardly anybody gets to go on the bridge and we had to get a full pat down from security before letting us in to the very protected, guarded, and locked up bridge. It was seriously amazing and the Captain's second man in command (I forgot what he is really called) showed us around and answered all of our questions. They were all so nice!

Those 5 windows go to the Captain's quarters.

Magnus steering the ship!

The captain wasn't there when we first arrived, but he came in shortly after. he was so nice. He had a great accent, being from Norway. he was the only Norwegian on the ship and was very proud of that fact.

Martin (on the left) was the second in command. He is the one who spent the most time with us answering our questions. He was form Brazil (I think). Such a nice guy.

This is the captain's scooter. He rides it around the ship when he has to get somewhere quickly. So funny!

After our awesome bridge tour we looked around parts of the ship that we had never really been and saw some awesome models of the boats that Royal Caribbean owns.

We headed back to our rooms and the kids got ready for the pool while Andy and I got ready to cash in our spa certificate from our Love and Marriage game show.

We did a couples spa service. I wish I would have taken a before photo, but I forgot! We had a private room with all sorts of luxurious masks, scrubs, washes, lotions, robes etc. The room had a shower with 4 shower heads and a big steam room in it. We had one hour to give each other a luxurious spa service! The lady that worked there explained what all of the products were for and told us how and where to use them on each other. As she was leaving she said, "PLEASE don't forget to lock the door!" haha! It was so cool! I really liked all of the products they had. They were all foreign products though, and I had never heard of any of them.

The big steam room.

We both agreed that our skin felt so amazing afterwards!

We met up with our kids at the pool and we all had lunch together.

We saw another noat out in the open sea. For some reason it was cool.

We all just relaxed and really soaked up and enjoyed our last day hanging out with no worries.

We headed back to our cabins to shower and get ready for the ice show. We had front seats once again (courtesy of Make a Wish!) and the bartender brought us all sodas.

The show was seriously amazing! I was so completely entertained. The performers were so cute with the kids, too. Since we were on the front row they interacted with our kids throughout. They would give them a high five as they skated by, wink at them, wave to them, etc. We got sprayed with ice several times because we had such great seats.

Magnus said he liked it...

Haha! Looks like the week has finally caught up with him!

After the show we got ready to go to our last dinner on the ship. Before dinner, Andy and I headed up to guest services to settle our account and check out. 

We went in the dining room for our last delicious dinner. It was such a fun night. The servers all performed a parade/song and dance around the huge dining room. It was so much fun. After a yummy dinner we said goodbye to our amazing servers.

We had to go back to our rooms and pack after that (sad face!) so we could leave our luggage out for our room attendant. We only kept a couple of carry-on's with our clothes in them for the next day. After a little bit the kids were driving us crazy so we sent them to the kids clubs and Andy and I finished packing up our rooms. They had all sorts of fun stuff going on that night in the kids clubs. Farewell parties, themed parties, etc. Laylah's group even had a "prom" and she went with all of her new friends and had a blast. 

Andy and I went and ordered our professional photos from the slew that had been taken by the ship's photographers. We got 3 free 8x10's courtesy of Make a Wish and it was hard to choose, but we found some great ones.

There was quite a windstorm picking up outside and it caused the ship to be extra rocky that night. I started feeling pretty ill and when we went to pick up Magnus from the kids club he said the same thing.

They'd had an animal party and he had his face painted like a rhino (his favorite animal, of course!)

Magnus and I went back to the room and Andy took the 3 middle kids to the arcade. I really wanted to go to the farewell party for adults, but I felt so sick. I laid on my bed after giving Magnus some sea sick medicine and putting him to bed. 

When Andy brought the kids back, he put our luggage outside our room (super sad face!) to be picked up and taken off the boat. After that the kids went to bed (except Laylah who was still at the prom) and Andy waited up for her while I watched the farewell show on the cruise channel on tv. Our game show came on after that and we sat and watched ourselves. It was so funny. I fell asleep and I guess Laylah came back at some point, haha.

It was a terrific last day to our cruise, even with the crazy weather that night that made the ship so rocky and made half of us sick. I was just glad it was the only night that the weather was bad!

Next up... going home. Boo!