Traveling with AIDAprima - arrival

I decided to go with my 2nd son (3.5 years) old on a cruise. Just him and me. First of all my oldest son still has pre-school and he is so much enjoying "fasnacht/karneval" so that I didn't want to take that away from him. Today is the big parade with all his friends.

And than it is also not easy to be the second oldest. He always wants to be like his older brother and is competing with him in all possible ways at the moment with just one disadvantages: being 2.5 years younger. So that can be quite frustrating some times. So I wanted to give him some "dad" time and get him out of the regular routine into a new environment.

Some people find that odd going on vacation without wife and probably everybody on this trip thinks that I am divorced. I love my wife very much and one thing is certain - it is the last reason that I wouldn't want her to be here with us. But In my point of view there is nothing so powerful than time for two. With your partner but also with your kid especially if he/her has a lot of brothers or sisters. That time can change and heal a lot and has for sure a significant influence on the relations between those two individuals spending the time together. And in my feeling that was something my son just needed right now.

As all of this was very spontaneous the only chance was to go on a cruise around the canarian islands. I did that trip before and have been on several cruises before but actually I didn't care about the where and how to go on vacation as only the time with my son mattered to me. And with him you can have fun everywhere.

The flight from Zurich was quite early - 6 a.m. so we had to get up at 3:30 to get things ready and drive to the airport on time. The flight was perfectly alright - of course my son was so thrilled going on holiday that he didn't sleep until 30 min before landing. Timing could have been better but at least he got some sleep.

Arriving at the ship was amazing - those things are really huge. My son first thought that is a building and was looking for the ship. And he is right - it is not so easy to distinguish especially as those ships usually leave the harbor late in the night (when he is already sleeping) and arriving at the next harbor very early in the morning (before anybody is awake). That can also confuse some adults not to imagine how difficult it is for a 3.5 year old to get the right picture.

We arrived at 11 a.m. at the check-in and were told that the official check-in time is 2 p.m. That is something you don't want to hear being on the road with a small kid sind 4 a.m. in the morning. But that was the first surprise I got: 10 minutes later they just opened check-in for early arrivals so I felt really taken care of.

Being on board I already assumed that my room won't be ready and that was fine for me. I check with reception (they started to introduce robots to make waiting in line a fun thing) and indeed the room was not ready yet. No problem - lets go for lunch and than walk around the ship. While grabbing some food I received a text saying: your room is ready. That was around 12:30. I was simply amazed as I even has asked for a notification.

The only bitter pill to swallow is the security training everybody needs to attend to. Yes - everybody even 3.5 year old kids who got up at 4 a.m. in the morning need to come to the training at 9 p.m. (+1 hour time shift). So that was difficult but probably not easy to plan differently.

So my impression of the first days was fantastic. The organization (on-boarding wise) was just excellent and better than a few years ago. That is something which makes me feel taken cared of - something I want in my vacation.