Today's the day, it starts off like a usual rushed morning trying to round up the kids for school and getting ready for work. The past few nights Al and I have been on operation pack the moho and it's a job I hate. I've been making lists and lists of lists and ticking things off as I go. For some reason I'm still old school when it comes to the packing list and don't reuse a spreadsheet version.
Whether it's because we're more practised, have forgot loads of things or we're only taking summer stuff we seem to be very efficient with lots of space available. Even though we were 90% packed it's all the last little bits that seem to take all the time and even though I got away from work on time we found ourselves rushing towards the end and eating into our buffer should anything go wrong. To make things worse when we got to the top of the motorway junction we realised we'd left the boat food that was chilling in the fridge behind. It was a split decision we had to make, go back and ensure the kids have something they'll eat or risk missing the boat. Of course any sensible person would choose to leave the food so we decided to go back for it.
On the topic of food I'm a big believer in trying the local delicacies and our kids are mostly pretty adventurous but I did learn from our big adventure last year there are certain things they don't sell in mainland Europe.
Crisps! Yes of course they sell crisps and even interesting and new flavours but they are all in large bags. There doesn't seem to be the concept of a single portion pack that you'd put in a kids lunchbox. Not a big deal you may think just buy a large bag and share. Oh if only, of course two children would never agree on the same flavour on the same day and there would always be the argument that one has more than the other. It simply won't do so I've fashioned a crisp shelf. 98 packets in total let's see how long that lasts.
Cereal, again yes they sell it but I was shocked by how expensive it was and not always a large choice available so one cupboard is also dedicated to a variety of choices.
Finally I've stocked a large snack bag. Despite having a chat with both children about the importance of kindness and patience and trying not to annoy each other it is likely going to resort to bribery at times. When we arrive in Spain I will show them the bag and remind them that only kind children will be allowed treats. We will see how well we succeed. I've just asked the kids out of the 24 days how many days they think they'll be allowed to choose something from the treat bag. Robert answered first and said 19, Liliya said 22. I'll report back.
We arrived at the ferry port at 6.04pm with a you must have checked in 45 mins before the 7pm sail time so ended up with 11 minutes to spare. As it turns out we don't actually get through the queue until 6.25 but they do check us in so we should be good.
As we're waiting there's the inevitable 'I'm hungry' so it's time to start working our way through said crisp shelf. Robert's comics have already fallen off the table and our first accident of the trip happens. As I step down off the sofa I step on the comic which skids away from underneath me and I go back first into the edge of the oven. I've now got some lovely scratches all the way down my back and a sore wrist, the comic came out better than me with only a small rip to the corner.
We make it onto the boat and get to our room for the next two nights.
Even though it's technically almost bedtime for the kids they are way too excited so hoping by exploring the ship for a while it will tire them out.
There's a couple of little soft play rooms for them and on the top deck some see-saws. We decide to have a drink at the bar and Robert suggests a cocktail will help my back pain, I think that's a rather good suggestion. They've actually got a decent selection and even have a make your own kids mocktail so Robert chooses tropical, apple and lemon, even Liliya branches out from her usual selection and goes for a strawberry juice.
We were just about to leave when they announced they were having a quiz. I'm usually rubbish at general knowledge but even the kids could get involved with this, there was a question about Disney princesses and planets which she then told us about the song they've been learning at school.
One question had us thinking though, what was the highest grossing Christmas movie. Straight away Robert said the grinch, purely on the basis that it's one of his favourite movies and would watch it all year. Another was most popular pizza topping and he wanted to go for Pepperoni. We chose neither, opting for home alone and margarita.
Well we got 15/20 and if only we'd listened to Robert it would have been 17 and the joint winning score (we wouldn't have won on the tie breaker question, how many bathrooms does Buckingham Palace have). We've promised at tomorrow night's quiz we will give Robert's answers more consideration.
We had a quick walk around the top outside deck, the kids played on the exercise equipment, we got to see the lovely sunset then retired to the cabin.
The official day one doesn't have enough content for a blog so here goes, I didn't feel well so spent a lot of time chilling in the cabin, thankfully not sea sickness as its a very smooth crossing. Annoyingly I forgot to pack breakfast bars into the boat bag but I did have bananas and chocolate mini rolls so they kids were very excited at having cake for breakfast. They mostly behaved just doing drawings or reading until it was time to have our cabin picnic and I'm really pleased we went back for it now since the options on board aren't great and very overpriced as we'd known they would be.
After lunch we let the kids watch a movie followed by some time in the play area. We tried to book in to the restaurant for dinner but it didn't open until too late and everyone was hungry so it was seconds on the picnic again and another movie. It was then time to try our luck again at the quiz but today's was a music theme with 45 name the song and artist from the 60/70/80s. The kids wouldn't stand a chance and we didn't much fancy our luck either. As it happens we did better than expected with 39/90 and beat our neighbouring table although the winners had 62. The red lion cocktail was nice though and Robert enjoyed another of the design your own mocktails.
