Nick’s First Vacation: Costa Maya Part 3

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So there we were.  Early afternoon and Nick was already done with his nap.  The big question was what we were going to do for the rest of the afternoon.  We finally decided to play the Midship Detective game. We figured it would be a great time to do it since a lot of people were off the ship.  This is another one of those wonderful additions for the new ships.  What you do is you go to one of the two computer headquarters to start (there is one on Deck 2 and one on Deck 3).  Once there you decide which game you want to play.  There is The Case of the Missing Puppies (101 Dalmatians), The Case of the Plundered Paintings (Mickey and Friends), and The Case of the Stolen Show (The Muppets).  Then you get a map and your detective badge (pictured above).  The badge is what activates the computers and what helps track your specific game.

Once the game is started you go all over the ship getting clues to help you solve the case.  For the Muppet game there are some special props on the ship that you use, but otherwise you go to special pictures that come to life.  When you get to them you stand on the designated spot on the floor and hold your badge up facing the picture.  Then you follow the instructions that you are given.  The back of your map has a list of all the suspects and you can write down the clues.  Once you get enough clues you can start ruling out the different suspects.  You keep going to different pictures until you’ve solved the case.

 

I really wanted to play The Muppet game, but everyone decided that Nick would probably enjoy the Dalmatian game the best (animals can crack him up), and of course keeping Nick happy and entertained was our main goal.  Nick loved when we were at the pictures and he got to watch the story play out.  Traveling to the pictures was not as fun.  The one thing to note about this game is that you really travel all over the ship.  You go up and down the decks and from one end of the ship to the other.  We started by hitting the main decks, and those were fine, but Nick had a freak out every time we had to walk a hall that contained staterooms.  Somewhere along the way he had come to associate our room with having to sleep (even though we spent quite a bit of time there), so every time we were in the a hall he thought we were taking him to the room for a nap (the halls all look the same).  It got to be pretty rough by the end.  We also got tiered of riding up and down elevators, so we eventually just started carrying the stroller up and down the stairs if we were only going up or down one deck.  Over all we all had a good time though, and we did correctly solve the case.

I had read somewhere that it should take about an hour and a half to play, and I’d say that was about right.  Meaning that when we were done there still was a lot of afternoon left.  It was late enough though that we felt we could have our afternoon coffee.  Since Nick was with us we couldn’t go to the adult only coffee bar, but there also is one on Deck 4 that is family friendly, so we headed there.  Jason had a movie that he wanted to watch, so he got his coffee to go while Mom, Grandma, Nick, and I found a nice spot to lounge and relax (or play if you’re Nick) while we enjoyed our coffee.

Nick had the best time running around the lobby and main decks during the afternoon.  They were empty since most of the guests weren’t on the ship, so we just let him have at it.  Luckily it’s a family cruise, so most people don’t mind having a little one underfoot.  We did eventually take him back to the room to play a little before dinner.

 

We were back at the Royal Court for dinner.  It was far from the most relaxing dinner though.  Nick was overtired and done in.  Jason went up to our room early on to get the tablet because it was obvious that Nick wasn’t going to play happily (it was kind of funny because he was far from the only one watching a tablet or phone during dinner that night).  Having his shows helped, but it only lasted so long.  As soon as we were done eating (which seemed like forever because our service was very slow) we got Nick out of there.

We took things easy that night.  Since Nick was still fussy we took him for another walk which did help calm him down.  Then we all went to bed because we had to all get up early the next day for our excursion to the Mayan ruins!

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