Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Pirate's Cruise








While in Panama City, we took the kids on a MAJOR excursion: a PIRATE SHIP on the ocean.

Of course, the only cruise we could schedule was right in the middle of our typical nap time; 3pm, so we were in for some tired kids. But it was totally worth pushing through.

I just want to tell you before I get started that this 2 hour cruise was amazing AND I could totally see Matt retiring someday and running a company like this for the rest of our lives.


My nephew looking like we all felt after the ship was rocking and rolling in the ocean.
We recovered, but the water's were a little rough that day!


We boarded the pirate ship and they took us out of the harbor, where they shot off a real life cannon scaring the crap out of my kids. All four kids (my niece and nephew) were crying and we thought for sure that this could be the longest two hours of our lives.

After they had a water fight with another tourist cruise (that was really cool but the kids were crying too hard to notice), they painted the kids faces. While the girls were being painted, the boys got to "swab the deck." I am going to incorporate "swabbing the deck" into our house as soon as possible.



Then they moved onto to an all boat sword fight! Asher got really into this one and then he was off and RUNNING!

After the sword fight, the kids got to shoot a cannon into a basket which was fun and really just killed a lot of time. We also got to see some dolphins around this time out in the ocean which made the trip for the adults.


Asher had the best time. He was very into EVERYTHING. They took us downstairs into the dungeon and told about the buried treasure in the sea and how we had to look for an orange buoy with a large "x" on it and if we saw it we had to yell, "Thar she blows Cap'n!!!" Then they threw a large grappling hook like from Deadliest Catch into the water, all the kids got to grab the line and pull the treasure up from the bottom of the sea.

Then they took a look into the treasure chest and did a little program about it that was really silly and got the kids giggling, but then the kids got to come forward and select the treasure; the littlest kids first.



After this, they had a huge dance party (ala YL dance through the ages) which of course all the kids loved (but my kids went crazy for), handed out tambourines, and danced all over the ship. After this they put pirate tatoos on all the kids, gave out pirate treasure necklaces and we were back in the harbor.


It was a packed-out two hours and they did a FANTASTIC job. No doubt this will become our family tradition every time we go to Panama City. And, I think that Matt will have to look into this a future business endeavour. No kidding.


If you ever wanna check it out, click here: Pirate Cruise

1 comment:

Amy Noll said...

um, can i go next time?? wow. that looks like it was an incredible experience. prob just like being on a Somalian pirate boat right? but seriously, that's awesome. see you soon!!!