My cruise journey (February 8 - 16, 2026) with my family

February 18, 2026

Intro

On February 8, 2026, we started my first cruise trip. I have an timeline for every day, including the header, the day number (the full trip was 7 days), and what status it was (at port or at sea).

Day one: at port Galveston, exploring Harmony of the Seas

We arrived at the port, in Galveston. It was a long ride to the port, considering my house in Houston.

After checking in, we went to eat lunch at the Windjammer. It was an all-you-could-eat buffet. We then went to explore the ship. Some of the things we saw were at deck 15, 14, 6, and 5. We saw cositas, pools, and more. In the late afternoon, we played more. First, me and my mom explored the sports area in level 15 (which was unvisited in the first tour) and played mini golf and ping - pong (AKA table tennis). I ate an ice cream and saw the Flowrider and the Ultimate Abyss - a slide from deck 15 to deck 6 (a 10 deck slide!). Then, we went down to join my dad and grandpa. After a stop at the Windjammer for a snack, me and my dad went to play more mini golf while my mom took my grandpa to the liquor tasting party. We ate at a restaurant where I got a kids menu. I kept on forgetting that we were on a ship!

Day two: at sea, playing on the Harmony of the Seas

After breakfast at the Windjammer, I first went to play more mini golf with my mom again. Then, my entire family (except my grandpa) went to a family field day. Despite the name, not a lot of families went to the field day. Also, the other team won due to a tiebreaker. We lost because the team captain needed to retrieve the ball, so he needed to run two times. Our team captain was slow. However, if I was team captain, our team [probably] would have won! Then, after lunch at the Windjammer again, we rested at our cabin. My mom and I went to swim. After some time in the pool and whirlpool, I went to the waterpark. Also, my dad had promised to go to work and then go to swim with me. He actually was still in bed by the time my mom, grandpa, and I came back for a rest. Somehow, I got stuck in the tunnel slide. Then, we went to the park to play chess. After the break in our cabin, we went to play chess. My grandpa still couldn't understand the rules, no matter how many times I taught him. After dinner, my mom and I went to the Aquatheatre to watch a play. While I was writing this section, I felt the ship sway multiple times!

Day three: at sea, exploring/playing on the Harmony of the Seas

On this day, I went to play more mini golf. While playing mini golf, we met some of the team members we were playing with during the Family Field day. There, we made a track of who made how many shots in the holes. One of my best shots set the ball right by the hole! Also, a repair person came and fixed the television, which couldn't connect to the server. This time, breakfast, lunch, and dinner were eaten at the Windjammer. For dinner, I got a dessert of ice cream, with chocolate sprinkles. I thought that there were rainbow sprinkles!

Day four: at port Roatan, playing on the West Bay beach

This was our first port day. I've never seen the Harmony of the Seas on the outside since the day at Port Galveston. After the ride to the beach and changing into my swimsuits, I went to build a seawall. It was a large one, with a moat. My dad also made one, without a moat. It was long gone before mine. Then, my dad and I went to snorkel. The experience was fun, especially because of the fish in the water. I saw some kids build a castle for seaweed, and went to help. I was good at helping the crew build the castle, by inventing some good techniques, patching up some weak parts, and creating a drainage tunnel so that when the water level rose too high, the tunnel would drain all of the water to the other side so that the water would not reach the top, which was weak. For the techniques, I created the "sand oven" technique. I just threw some blobs of very wet sand on the beach, and the sun would dry them off. I also came up of the technique of "painting" wet sand over good sand to stop the water from wettening the good sand. After some time of that, I went to build my own castle. My mom helped out. During this period, we also found out that someone also caught a [live] starfish (which is now called a sea star.) ! Then, I helped some boys build a mountain range. I worked on the Great Wall part. It was close to a hole that they filled up. It was first a graveyard, then the village. One of their biggest holes was more than one foot deep and three feet long! During this period, the Legendary Mountain fell. It was one of the two important mountains. The other important mountain was called the Mythical Mountain. After the ride home, it went as usual. A shower, then watching the TV. We (this time the all four of us) went to play mini golf. After, I went to watch more TV, and I went to write this section.

Day five: at port Costa Maya, playing on the beach again

This time, at Costa Maya, we went down to the port. My grandpa didn't come, but the rest of us came. After being stuck at the port resort, we finally sat at a shuttle towards The Krazy Lobster. At there, we ate Sprite, quesadillas, and more. I kayaked, built a new water prevention facility, and took pictures of my mom and dad kayaking in shallow water. I used three smaller facilities in the water prevention facility: a seaweed water slower to make water lose energy, a moat to drain water, and a big wall. After going back to the ship, I watched TV, washed off, wrote my homework, and more. After supper, my mom and I went outside and saw the ship leave port. Our ship was the last of three cruise ships: a NCL(Norwegian Cruise Line) ship, a Celebrity Cruises ship, and our ship: the Harmony of the seas. Today, I also published the only post published at sea: Blog navigator.

Day six: at port Cozumel, snorkeling

This time at Cozumel, we (without grandpa again) went to snorkel. I only went in on one of the three spots because (1) the water was too cold and (2) I had some wounds on my feet. On spot one, the water was deep. In the end, I had some trouble with my snorkel so I went up early. I didn't really observe spot two. When my mom promised that she would get up in 5 minutes, she actually spent the whole 15! On spot three, we had lunch. I got a chip and a can of 7up. After the snorkeling trip, I watched Mikey and JJ on Youtube. We went for pictures. Over there, we had a lot of pictures. At the restaurant (named "La Grande"), I got a grilled cheese sandwich and a rainbow salad from the kids menu, a strawberry shortcake from the main menu, and a lemonade for the drink. After, we looked at the pictures. I favorited 9 images with 1 from dad, total 10 images. As I went to bed, I realized that I hadn't wrote the section yet. So here I am, writing this section on day six.

Day seven: at sea, riding the Ultimate Abyss

First, my dad and I went to the "Behind the Waves" tour. It was more than $200, we saw the I - 95, bridge, and lots of the crew working. For freshwater, the water came from two evaporators, three filters, and wastewater. Food came from lots of storage rooms, AKA giant refrigerators. Some of the storage rooms were so cold that it could snow in there! I learned a lot of stuff, including: Standing upright, the Harmony of the seas is taller than the Eiffel Tour! One of the four bow thrusters has more horsepower than seven Ferraris! If you want to see more of the stats, visit Cruise ship stats. Then, we went back to our cabin. After that, we went to lunch at Windjammer, although that my mom said that we were going to eat at La Grande Restaurant. Then, we went to play mini golf. The time was cut short because I had to go to the restroom. To get to the Big Dad Hideaway Heist aqua show, we took the Ultimate abyss (remember that we were going to go from deck 15 to deck 6). I then went back to our cabin to watch Youtube. We then went to eat at Windjammer, not La Grande because we had to go to watch two shows. The first one, which was an Ice Spectacular, was the one skipped. I watched the second one, named Columbus. It was pretty good, except that the lights were too bright, so bright that it seemed like the Sun had exploded!

Day eight: at Port Galveston, saying goodbye to Harmony of the Seas

Today, we went to eat at the Windjammer, as usual. Then, we went to go down the gangway. We passed the spot where we had met at the Behind the Waves tour. Then, we went to our spot that we parked our car. I had a lot of feelings on the ride home - going back to school, one big trip over, and playing with my cousin (who arrived on February 14.)