On a boat

So we’re on a ship, in the sea, in the middle of our holiday. It didn’t have have the best of starts though. An unfortunate combination of an over-tired, hungry and stir-crazy child led to a big old meltdown during the 30 minute lifeboat drill at Southampton. For the entire 30 minutes. We felt every single one of those 1,800 seconds.

But as Alex’s friend said on Twitter, you’re not on holiday *until* you have a spectacular toddler meltdown. And after that things improved almost immediately, luckily enough.

I don’t mean this to sound like ‘what we did on our holidays, by Gill and Eliza, aged one and a half’, but here’s the best bits so far:

* Eliza’s face when she woke up on the first morning and saw all the sea outside
* Watching the first sunrise with her on our balcony, snuggled in her sleep sack (subsequent sunrises have been just as lovely, but lots warmer)
* The children’s facilities – toddler play area and splash pools especially – and having all my family around to play in them with her
* The boat itself; miles of corridors and stairs and fun places for little legs to explore
* The food (Eliza’s highlights are undoubtedly the normally contraband cake and ice-cream)
* Hundreds of super-smiley people to high-five her, be lovely and generally make a massive fuss

This is an extended-family holiday completely independent of anything else. Royal Caribbean actually got in touch a few weeks ago to offer a press trip cruise, which we had to turn down due to the timing of the one we were already due to take with them. However, the RC press team arranged lovely things for us for this trip, including a room upgrade and the wifi I’m using to post this (so thank you).