Saturday, November 13, 2010

Cruising with ADHD, never a dull moment.


Sailing on Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas right at the start of the new school year, we knew that this sailing wouldn't have many kids onboard. Usually, Adventure Ocean would separate the kids into 3-5, 6-9 and 9-11 -- on this sailing, they combined the 6 - 11 year olds into one group.

Well at first we celebrated. Our girls would be together! Yeayyyy! And then we thought, UH OH, our girls would be together.

Our youngest, has had a somewhat colorful experience on cruise ships. It all began when this adorable little 8 month old, out of the blue, got sick, practically stopped breathing and needed to be medically evacuated off a Disney cruise ship. That was 6 years ago. Now she is a energetic, vibrant and shall we say bouncy -- yeah, bouncy is a good word, 6 year old.

So we warned Adventure Ocean about her. Yes I use the word WARNED. I said that she WILL BE hyper. Not she may be, she WILL BE. So we drop her off for her first night at Adventure Ocean and BLESS THEM -- they did their best. There were a couple of mishaps. She climbed the rope on the outside of the slide and almost broke her leg. Another little boy slammed her fingers into a sliding drawer, if we wanted to go to the ship's medical center she would be treated for free (she was fine).

Because they combined the age groups - it was tough for my youngest to understand the more complex rules of the games set up for the older kids. So she asked to move to the 3-5 year old group -- she kept asking to go to the "baby room".

So if we had any problems, it was trying to keep our child to pick ONE group. If she saw her sister, she wanted to run to her in THAT room. Then when the game was too complex, she wanted to go back to the "baby room".

Other than that, the kids had a FABULOUS time! My oldest said that she didn't miss the "big ship". I thought she would miss the bells and whistles of the Freedom Class. I asked her if she thought she needed the H20 zone to have a good time -- she said - No, she was having just as much fun. So that was a nice surprise.

There was a counselor onboard - nicknamed - "Evan Almighty" -- I have to give a "HUGE THANK YOU" to him! One day he asked where my youngest was. I said that she was spending the day with me -- I told him that I thought Adventure Ocean needed a break -- he replied "I have a great time with her! I have no problems at all. Please make sure you bring her back tonight! We'll have fun"

He probably has no idea how much of an impact a simple remark like that made on me. To a mom who is so used to hearing from everyone how much of a problem her youngest child is, it was so nice to her that a counselor wanted to spend time with her child.

So THANK YOU to "Evan Almighty". For this mom, your compassion made all of the difference!