We went on one of these Friends and Family Cruises a couple of years ago and had a blast. Our only regret was that William wasn't old enough to go. We hoped that they would offer another one once he was old enough, and we were lucky enough that they did. So we signed ourselves up and it was shamelessly all about William's adventure (though, the air show is worth it no matter how many times you see it...)
We toured all around the ship to see the mess decks, post office, ship's store, chapel, fore castle, Combat Control, and more. William learned how to go up and down the ladders safely and how to operate fast acting water tight doors. They had all kinds of hands on activities for kids and any person on duty would invite any child nearby to try out the equipment at their duty station (no, they did not let anyone into the propulsion plants...) Here William is hosing down the training F-18 shell and he even got to handle a 50 caliber machine gun (and there were bullets in the magazine, but not chambered and he was heavily supervised by friendly, qualified sailors.) Awesome!
Since it is a long 12 hour day, they provide all kinds of entertainment. Hanger Bay #3 was set up as a kid's area with bouncy house (which William spent an hour and a half in), face painting, movies, balloon animal making, sumo suit arena, multi axis spin and puke machine, paint ball arena, and this padded staff jousting set-up. All for free (aside from the $15 per person charge for the whole cruise.) William wanted me to joust with him, but luckily, there was this kid who didn't have a challenger. I sent William up since this looked like a fairer fight (and I didn't need to get up there...). William was probably out classed by age, size, and experience, but I thought he did quite well. Watch the video to see the result...
William loved touring around the flight deck and getting a close look at the few airplanes and helicopters they'd kept on board for the air show.
When it came time for the air show, the whole crowd migrates to the flight deck. They have gear lined up along the side of the angle deck as a barrier and installed bigger bleachers than they did last year. We went up about an hour before the show and Caroline was able to get a seat on the bleachers (if you look closely, you can see the top of her head in the middle of the top row of the first set of bleachers you see above.) As for William and me...
We got front row seats on the flight line! William sat down on this "white gear" and patiently waited for the show to start. Only drawback was that the gear was greasy and dirty. Along with an hour and a half of sitting here, the sweat from all his time in the bouncy house, and getting sprayed down from the sea water fire hoses, he turned his bath water gray at the end of the day... All worth it!
They brought along three F/A-18 Hornets, an E-2 Hawkeye, and an EA-6B Prowler to catapult off the carrier in front of the crowd.
Here is the E-2 Hawkeye prepping for launch.
The Hornets did touch and go's. With all the people on the flight deck, they won't risk a broken arresting wire, so they remove them all and the planes come down like they are landing, and then apply full throttle as they hit (as they always do in case they miss the wire) and they take off again. The bone rattling power of an afterburner 4o feet away, is an awe inspiring sensation. You can see William wince at feeling it for the first time in the video. The sound track doesn't do it justice.
The USS LASSEN (DDG 82) was having their friends and family cruise too and they came alongside to watch the air show and then showed off some of their toys. They fired a few quick bursts of their CWiS (R2D2 looking radar guided gattling gun) which sounded more like a loud raspberry than a machine gun. Then they fired five rounds from their 5" deck gun...
Caroline is awesome! If you click open this picture and look to the upper right of the picture, you can see the gray blur of the projectile. Wow!
The last of the show was the two helicopters showing the US and Japanese flags to show the partnership the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON represents. It was a great day!
How cool is that?!! What an amazing day and so neat to be able to experience. I hope we might get to do something like that someday. Looks really awesome!
We went on one of these Friends and Family Cruises a couple of years ago and had a blast. Our only regret was that William wasn't old enough to go. We hoped that they would offer another one once he was old enough, and we were lucky enough that they did. So we signed ourselves up and it was shamelessly all about William's adventure (though, the air show is worth it no matter how many times you see it...)
We toured all around the ship to see the mess decks, post office, ship's store, chapel, fore castle, Combat Control, and more. William learned how to go up and down the ladders safely and how to operate fast acting water tight doors. They had all kinds of hands on activities for kids and any person on duty would invite any child nearby to try out the equipment at their duty station (no, they did not let anyone into the propulsion plants...) Here William is hosing down the training F-18 shell and he even got to handle a 50 caliber machine gun (and there were bullets in the magazine, but not chambered and he was heavily supervised by friendly, qualified sailors.) Awesome!
Since it is a long 12 hour day, they provide all kinds of entertainment. Hanger Bay #3 was set up as a kid's area with bouncy house (which William spent an hour and a half in), face painting, movies, balloon animal making, sumo suit arena, multi axis spin and puke machine, paint ball arena, and this padded staff jousting set-up. All for free (aside from the $15 per person charge for the whole cruise.) William wanted me to joust with him, but luckily, there was this kid who didn't have a challenger. I sent William up since this looked like a fairer fight (and I didn't need to get up there...). William was probably out classed by age, size, and experience, but I thought he did quite well. Watch the video to see the result...
William loved touring around the flight deck and getting a close look at the few airplanes and helicopters they'd kept on board for the air show.
When it came time for the air show, the whole crowd migrates to the flight deck. They have gear lined up along the side of the angle deck as a barrier and installed bigger bleachers than they did last year. We went up about an hour before the show and Caroline was able to get a seat on the bleachers (if you look closely, you can see the top of her head in the middle of the top row of the first set of bleachers you see above.) As for William and me...
We got front row seats on the flight line! William sat down on this "white gear" and patiently waited for the show to start. Only drawback was that the gear was greasy and dirty. Along with an hour and a half of sitting here, the sweat from all his time in the bouncy house, and getting sprayed down from the sea water fire hoses, he turned his bath water gray at the end of the day... All worth it!
They brought along three F/A-18 Hornets, an E-2 Hawkeye, and an EA-6B Prowler to catapult off the carrier in front of the crowd.
Here is the E-2 Hawkeye prepping for launch.
The Hornets did touch and go's. With all the people on the flight deck, they won't risk a broken arresting wire, so they remove them all and the planes come down like they are landing, and then apply full throttle as they hit (as they always do in case they miss the wire) and they take off again. The bone rattling power of an afterburner 4o feet away, is an awe inspiring sensation. You can see William wince at feeling it for the first time in the video. The sound track doesn't do it justice.
The USS LASSEN (DDG 82) was having their friends and family cruise too and they came alongside to watch the air show and then showed off some of their toys. They fired a few quick bursts of their CWiS (R2D2 looking radar guided gattling gun) which sounded more like a loud raspberry than a machine gun. Then they fired five rounds from their 5" deck gun...
Caroline is awesome! If you click open this picture and look to the upper right of the picture, you can see the gray blur of the projectile. Wow!
The last of the show was the two helicopters showing the US and Japanese flags to show the partnership the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON represents. It was a great day!
1 comment:
How cool is that?!! What an amazing day and so neat to be able to experience. I hope we might get to do something like that someday. Looks really awesome!
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