Planes, Trains, Automobiles... and Cruise ship or The Cruise That Almost Wasn't - a WBPC 2015 TR

[GoofyNewfie]

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my first ever TR. The 2015 Westbound Panama Canal. I'd so meant to do one after our 2013 EBTA but got work got ahold of me too quickly and I never found the time. I told too many people that I was going to do one this time so rather than disappoint, here it is. Please forgive any obvious inexperience. One of the things I'm already finding difficult is writing things in the proper tense. I will probably get it wrong multiple times, but since certain events didn't happen as planned, some of the tense may be foreshadow-y.

A bit about us. DW Kim works at the local hospitals doing shift work. I (Chris) am in IT and have been working on an extremely time-consuming project for the last 3+ years that takes me travelling overseas quite a bit. By the time this cruise rolled around, my wife and I had not had a vacation together since the 2013 ETBA and spending quality time together was a real struggle. My project was behind and had been in overdrive for 6 months and I really needed a break. We were so looking forward to all the time we would have together.

Us from the 2013 EBTA

We specifically booked the 2015 WBPC for a few reasons:
1. We know we like the longer cruises and do not mind sea days.
2. Like the transatlantic, this is a very cool idea to us - to go through the Panada Canal.
3. Air Canada rips us off for one-way international travel and staying in North America would make booking flights simpler and cheaper.
4. The 2015 EBTA was going to the North Atlantic in May. Considering that's where we live, and know what it's like in May, we would not be doing that one.

We booked shortly after it was announced into a 10C. We like the split bathroom and don't feel we need a window. I somewhat feel that a window or balcony is a bit of a trap in that there's more incentive to stay in the room rather than get out and about. As we watched prices, I think they added about another $1000 in the last days for a 10C.

For our flights, we decided to fly the day before the cruise as it's impossible to fly to St. John's to Miami in time on the day of departure. You'll see why that might have not been a smart idea... For some reason, business class tickets were only slightly more expensive so we booked those. In the end, this was a very smart decision and you'll see why as well. 7am departure from St. John's, connecting in Toronto, and arriving in Miami at 3pm. We had arranged to stay at the same hotel where much of the cruise group was staying.

For at the end of the cruise, we had gone back and forth on ideas, but in the end we decided to take the train to Anaheim to do Disneyland for a couple days, then a day doing Hop-on/Hop-off bus in Los Angelos before flying home.

The itinerary for our 2015 WBPC was to be:

Apr 30: Flying to Miami http://www.disboards.com/threads/pl...t-wasnt-a-wbpc-2015-tr.3413131/#post-53717606
May 1: Miami, Florida
At Sea
Cozumel, Mexico
At Sea
At Sea
Cartagena, Colombia
Panama Canal (cruising canal)
At Sea
At Sea
At Sea
At Sea
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
At Sea
San Diego, California
Disneyland
Los Angelos
Flying to St. John's

As usual, the cruise group had arranged all sorts of events and we had signed up for many of them. Thanks to everyone who arranged an event! We only booked Disney-arranged excursions as our fear of being left behind in foreign countries is too strong. The EBTA had shown us that they do indeed leave people behind. In the last days before the cruise, we did change one. Kim had wanted to do the secret river excursion in Cozumel and even though I have a rather strong/irrational fear of water, I had agreed to do it. But, we heard some last minute things that changed her mind. First, that there's a long ferry ride and DW doesn't handle those well. Second, that the water levels were really high and that there were spiders. We changed to a cooking excursion. We never found anyone that did the secret river excursion to see how it went. Can anyone comment?

We had also prearranged to sit with two other families that we had done the EBTA with. I am so glad that we did. I am especially glad that we didn't try to sit by ourselves. There was a couple nearby, sitting alone, that I watched for the duration of the cruise that I felt bad for. They looked so lonely. Hardly talked to each other let alone anyone else. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?

By doing a linked reservation, like we did, to be able to sit with others, we were able to see what things that they had booked on board. But this didn't cause any trouble but the big warning the website gives you is slightly off-putting. Something about others not being able to do anything while you are making changes.

Like the 2013 EBTA, we were leaving DS(16) home as we could not pull him out of school just before exam preparations were starting. However, unlike last time, the in-laws were not going to stay in the house, but just drop by often. They live only a few minutes away. In preparation for this, DS and I had done a couple of grocery store runs and several talks. He's a very independant sort who has spent quite a bit of time away from home in the summers while at Air Cadet camp. We have lots of close neighbors and even a couple of co-workers nearby so there would be lots of people checking in on him, but it was still moderately nerve wracking to leave him home. However, I'll jump right to the end on this point and say he did great home alone. I'm very proud of him.

Besides ensuring Alex was ready, there were a number of last minute things that couldn't be done until right before the cruise for various reasons. New glasses, winter tires changed, dog dropped off with a friend, etc. It was a busy last week and in the last couple days before the cruise, we were still very slow in finishing packing. A few bad excuses kept getting in the way but we got packed early enough that we got to bed at a reasonable hour. Our philosophy for packing was 7 days worth of clothes with the expectation that we'd probably use them up quicker than that. It worked out just about perfect with us doing laundry 3 times. This resulted in only two regular sized pieces of luggage and one carry-on only - and we were doing FEs and more.

All items checked off the night before our flights, we got to bed, but with a foreboding fear because of the fog that was rolling in...

 

[GoofyNewfie]

EDIT: Sorry this first main post is so long. It was a long day...

From the opening post, you would have seen that our plan was to fly the day before the cruise. A two leg journey from St. Johns at 7am, connecting through Toronto, and landing at 3pm in Miami where we would spend the night with our cruising pals and then a leisurely morning. It didn't work out that way...

The day didn't start off well but we didn't realize it for over an hour. Fog is not a friend. Living in the fog capital of the world does kick you in the butt at times. Due to fog, our 7am flight was delayed until 130pm and it would be impossible to catch our connection in Toronto to Miami. However, we didn't realize this right away.

Lesson learned, always check for flight status before you go to the airport. Air Canada provides a useful service where you can subscribe to changes to a particular flight but if you don't actually check for them, it's rather not useful. We didn't realize the delay until we arrived at the airport even though the email was sent to us around 330am. Our only poor excuse was not wanting to start the trip too tired, we hadn't scheduled much time after waking up to be at the airport so we hadn't had time. We live extremely close to the airport (5 min drive) so we can be a little cavalier with these things. We knew it was foggy, but silly us hadn't bothered to check. Or perhaps it was simply denial as we didn't have tons of extra time to get to Miami and we didn't want to admit anything to ourselves.

Now that we knew our 7am flight was suddenly 130pm and there was no longer a possibility of catching our connecting Toronto to Miami flight we had to call Air Canada as they could not help us at the check in desk. St. John's isn't big enough for a ticketing/customer support desk. Thank goodness for being an Air Canada status holder as there's a separate phone number to use. Travelling so much for work has its perks. After about 20 minutes on the phone we were rebooked on a 5pm connection to Miami arriving about 8pm which was just fine. However, interestingly, even though Air Canada had had several hours to figure things out, they had not rebooked us onto a new useable connection on their own. But at last there had not been a long phone queue this time - I've experienced that all too often.

That arranged and very tired from only a few hours sleep, good ol' Tim Hortons coffee and some breakfast was in order before deciding whether we headed back home or not.

After that, and a little bit of staring out the window at the fog, we decided that we may as well head home.

Thankfully we are very close to the airport so it was only another $15 cab ride home to surprise our son who should be rising for school - which we did.

The fog was not lifting so fearing the worst, we started looking at all our options and there were not many. Many flights were sold out. We looked at different airports in Florida, dropping Air Canada, flying to Cozumel, and more. After posting on Dis and Facebook, we started getting info from so many helpful people. Which options were good, which were bad, travel times, and more. Thanks everyone for your help and best wishes.

Around this time I started marvelling at how travelling has changed over the years. When DW and I went on our driving honeymoon in 1993, it was organized by road altases and mailed tourism booklets from the places we were going to visit. Being throw a curveball like this so late in the game would have stumped us in those days. Several websites were useful. The flightplanning one was the only new one to me - my son told us about it:

• https://www.google.com/flights/ for looking at flight options across all carriers.
• https://flightplanning.navcanada.ca for looking at flying conditions. The plane we would be flying on needed 1000 feet of visibility. We could check that here.
• Google maps, of course.
• Local airport website
• http://www.taxifarefinder.com/ for determining the cost of taxis in Florida.
• and the usual ones like tripadvisor and booking.com.

As we worried about, after a couple hours, the flight out of St. John's was delayed further - until 4pm. Of course, this meant that our new connection was no longer possible either. Air Canada call number 2 was in order. Our options were dropping. Having previously researched options it was pretty quick to settle on having to change airports. No Miami options were possible anymore! We settled on connecting to Fort Lauderdale the next morning at 830 with a landing time of around noon. We were told it was just a 45 minute/$100 taxi. Just possible to make that with a couple hours to spare before the boat would sail away without us. However, we also readied an option of connecting to Orlando from Toronto at 9pm arriving around midnight. We felt this was a better option but risky due to fact that it was still foggy and further delays would burn that option.

Pause here and picture how much we are freaking out by now. We have received several departure changes and the chances of us making the cruise are getting smaller and smaller - we couldn't get out of St. John's. With Air Canada sending us departure changes, every email received fills us with fear. Every glance outside shows no improvement in the fog. The weather forecast is not encouraging but showed a small window in the afternoon. We have spent so much money and waited for this trip for so long. Being so expensive to travel from St. John's, we don't travel very often. This was our first vacation in 2 years and the next would probably be another 2 years. Such a very very stressful situation when a vacation is supposed to be helping with stress. We should have been counting the number of times we decided we would never cut things even this close in the future. 30 hours allocated for travel time from St. John's to Florida is simply not enough. I know that the whole travelling early thing is often a very hotly debated topic on the board, but the stress was just horrible. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Perhaps some of you don't know the geography. Newfoundland isn't well known. The island of Newfoundland is on the east coast of Canada. You cannot go any further east. Driving, it is at least 20 hours to the next big city (Halifax) and includes a ferry. There are few direct flights to the US from here and generally, they are often the worst at getting in/out. Air Canada has the most options for flights.

Fast forward a few more hours of painful waiting and we decide to head to the airport around 1pm to check for any new updates or rescue flights. Nuffin' except a very cheerful checkin agent who commiserated and agreed with our plan of staying booked with Fort Lauderdale in the morning but suggested to check into Orlando if we get to Toronto on time.

Fast forward more hours of sitting in the lounge and watching the flight delay another 15 minutes, we head down to the gate to nail bite our fingers hoping our plane will land. We found out the flight number of the arriving plane we would be using and watched it getting closer but fearing it would turn around after a failed attempt. Another useful website for tracking planes:

http://flightaware.com/live/fleet/ACA

However, low and behold, it landed!

But, of course the evil flight fairies had at least one more issue to throw at us. While the plane disembarked and they cleaned it up, I was called to the gate desk where the agent said, "I'm sorry sir, but I have some bad news for you.". My heart immediately dropped into my shoes... What in the world could it be but something that would prevent me from making it to Miami? We had no window left. The agent continued, "I am afraid we have had to move you.... to another seat". On this whole big plane, it had to be my seat that someone had power puked all over the seat and they could not clean it in time. Well, it could have been worse, I was still on the plane, just not sitting with DW anymore. DW had it bad too, having to sit next to the sick seat, but again, at least we were getting on the plane! They had done their best to clean it up, but it was still bad. They had mostly disassembled the seat to remove the worst parts.



It was still very foggy.



They held us on the tarmac while they landed a few planes in the short window they had.

Takeoff, some supper and a movie later and spirits were raising. One major high risk hurdle over with. We are in the air wishing/whisking our way to the wonderful hub of Toronto that would bring viable options to make the boat.



Arrival in Toronto around 6pm local was painless and I know the airport well (perhaps too well?).



Since we had an early enough arrival time, we booted it to the nearest customer service desk before even picking up our luggage where we lucked into a very friendly Air Canada agent to check into the Orlando option and see if there was anything else that made more sense. Remember, at this point, we are trying to get to Miami by 11-12 (trying to leave a little wiggle room) in the morning and we knew there were no flight options that got us to Miami by that time because the flights were sold out or too late so we were booked to Fort Lauderdale in the morning. With that in mind, the conversation took a while to get properly rolling and constructive. And do remember that it had been a pretty long stressful travel day already and we didn't feel good about the travel options. We still had visions of trying to meet the boat in Cozumel running through our heads.

So there were the "then why are you flying to Fort Lauderdale?"s and "oh, I am sure we can do better than that"s that didn't pan out like he thought. Long story short, and 20 min later we were booked onto the 9pm to Orlando. We grab our luggage at the carrousel, hightail it to the check in desk to dump the luggage, US customs, and to the lounge to work on a hotel and car rental.

I must say, US customs in Toronto is so much better than it used to be. Automated kiosks, no forms to fill out and no lines. Kudos to the improvements. Very painless.

With our arrival time of around midnight in Orlando, I believed there was only 1 choice for hotel, so after checking a couple of sites for a deal (but failing) I had booked us into the airport Hyatt. Trying to figure out a rental was another story. I could not figure out what the rental location return nearest the Port of Miami was called. We had to give up on that and get to the gate.

Shortly after, we are pleasantly seated together,



thankful that we made it when Kim looks out the window to see our luggage and only 1 or two other pieces not get put onto the plane and drive away behind the plane. She was very convinced this meant it wasn't getting on the plane for some strange reason. Perhaps all the itinerary changes had confused matters. I was strangely not worried about it. At this point it was going to follow us or not. I felt, worse case scenario, we would have an hour in the morning on the way to stop at a Walmart. I was just so relieved to be on the plane I think.

Take off preparations complete, and we take off. Not long after takeoff, but after the seat belt sign was turned off, the travel fairies had another issue for us. The gentleman on the other side one row ahead starts thrashing, throws up all over himself, looks like he is choking, and then seems to pass out! It was truly shocking. But, you know, I am fairly impressed with myself that my first thought was, "would it be possible for me to help?", but I have to admit, it was a close second that I also thought we are going to have to turn around and land the plane, crushing our chances of getting to the port. Thankfully, the flight attendant was there within seconds but I was readying myself to help if necessary. I was the closest guy that could help if he needed some lifting or something. I say that I was fairly impressed with which thoughts came first, but I wonder about the woman who was sitting next to him who jumped out of her seat at lightening speed and moved to an empty seat on the other side without staying to help. It probably was the right thing to do to make room, but...

Anyways, thankfully, the gentleman recovered on his own fairly quickly. He was unresponsive at first but came around after a minute or so. All this took probably less than 2 minutes. The flight attendant helped the poor guy clean up as much as possible, but his seat mate never did move back. The look of horror on her face is rather burned into my memory.

That was it for the drama of the flight. After landing in Orlando around midnight and getting to the luggage carousel, I left DW to collect it while I ran down to the Disney area to check the cruise desk
if there were other travel options they could help us out with. Being midnight, I wasn't hopeful and I was right. They were closed and it was just Magical Express. I asked them but they were very confused that there was even a Disney ship in Miami. But I learned the useful part, the cruise desk would not open until 9am which was too late for us. This had taken a while so rather than checking with the car places, it was back to DW.

Thankfully, she was standing there with the luggage. It had arrived. They must have been moving it to the other side of the plane and we couldn't see. Luggage gathered, off to the hotel. A painless few minutes later we were in the room and quickly to bed. The hotel is quite a nice place and ultra convenient but somewhat noisy.



I tossed and turned for 4 hours still worried about getting a rental and the drive. I had never driven the route. I gave up on getting back to sleep and quietly got ready for the day while DW was deep in sleep. Turned out it was very good she got as good a sleep as possible...

 

[wilma-bride]

Oh my goodness, you sound so calm aout the whole travel delay thing but I would have been totally freaking out. When I sae Kim's update on Facebook that morning, I must admit my heart dropped into my stomach so I was relieved to hear you had made it.

As far as Secret River was concerned, I as another of those people who was worried because of the spiders and, although I had a bit of a moment when our guide was telling us how big the spiders were, we didn't see any (not that I was aware of anyway, although Im fairly sure my group would not have told me if they had seen any) and the water levels were pretty low. There weren't actually any points at which I felt uncomfortable and the water was never really higher than my chest. So Kim would most likely have been OK - maybe next time. In fact, the worst part of that excursion was actually the ferry ride over to Playa del Carmen and, for that reason, we will probably stay where we are (i.e. do a local excursion) next time we visit Cozumel.

Looking forward to reading more now that the travel issues are over.

 

[GoofyNewfie]

May 1st - Departure Day

And suddenly, without any real sleep, it was a new day and we had to drive 4 hours on roads I had never driven on, going to a city to which I had never been.

Kim got up at 6am as planned and got ready very quickly such that we are able to head downstairs at 615 - 15 minutes ahead of schedule. That didn't last. After a quick debate on where to grab breakfast in the airport, we picked ol' reliable - McDonald's. Ol' reliable was a little less reliable this morning. That was the crunchiest egg mcmuffin ever. I'd thought they got softer with age. So was this mcmuffin so old that it had gone through its getting softer stage and into a hard as a rock stage? Well, let's chalk it up to a learning lesson.

While crunching through breakfast, I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I remember the severe shock when I realized that I did not have my drivers license! Remember, when I left for the airport, I was not expecting to do any driving. My passport was my ID. In great fear I asked DW whether she had hers. Oh, the sense of relief when she produced it. Lesson learned, always take it. However, this was something of a problem. She always makes me drive in this sort of situation. She is a fine driver, but just one of those things. Well, spilt milk and all that... However, I can only imagine what we would have had to do next. Try and find a flight to Miami leaving and landing in the next 6 hours? A bus? How extremely unlikely would there be a bus leaving in the next hour or two? Yikes. The feeling of relief was extreme because all those options had been running through my head while she was trying to find her license. Including flying to Cozumel again. All for the lack of a driver's license. What a lessons' learned trip this was turning out to be.

Rental car desk next. We had had a little experience with Budget and knew there was a Costco code so we picked them. The line was only 3 people long but it took so long. At least 20 minutes. I had budgeted about 30 minutes to pick up the car. After explaining that I needed a one day rental, dropping off near the Port of Miami, they started looking for me. I have to give them credit, it certainly felt like they were trying to get me a good price - which was making me feel a little more comfortable. Car rental companies make me nervous. Not through personal experience so much but of all the stories you hear. I don't rent cars very often. Anyway, things got a little complicated (and long) when they realized I needed to drop at the port rather than the airport. We had to switch agents because the price the original agent was getting was over $300. The next agent got us a price of about $90. We chose the prepaid tank of gas option because I didn't want to blow time trying to figure out a gas station and as a walk up, they added some insurance for free. I didn't understand that part so much, but I had been ready and willing today to pay for all the insurance options just to ease all the worries and things that could slow me down. No worries about scratches or dents today for me. We needed a gps so we got that for about $8. All totalled it was around $150 which I was fine enough with as we had to get moving. I felt the travel fairies probably needed another offering to send us on our way peacefully. Off to the car - Toyota Camry for anyone interested.

Bags in the car, seated, time to program the gps. Grab the rental agreement for the drop off address... Oh no. The agreement says we have to return to the Orlando airport. My offering to the travel fairies had not been accepted. Assuming this would likely blow us tons of time or dollars at the far end, I figured we better deal with it now with the people who made the mistake. The rental lot in Orlando has desks so I didn't go back to the beginning. That was probably a mistake. The agent there needed to call down to get confirmation and they were not even answering the phone down there. It took at least 20 minutes to straighten that out. Back to the car, now with the address, I try to program the gps. Nice, it cannot find the address in its memory banks. The gps even has a car rental location option and it wasn't there. I struggled with that for a while before we decided to just try to get to the Florida turnpike and figure it out as we go. From arrival at the budget desk to leaving the airport, it was 1.5 hours! We were running very behind.

Kim driving, of course, we started off. On the advice of the original agent, we took the airport's south exit to get to 417 to get to the turnpike. DW was so very stressed as traffic was oodles worse than we are used to. So after some stressful manoeuvres, perhaps a red light run or two, we were on the turnpike. It's a very nice highway. Being from Canada in the U.S, data packages for our phones are outrageous so we had no assistance from Google. However, I had had the forethought to download a couple of directions from Google onto my iPad when we had been in Toronto the previous night.
Using that, I picked another landmark close to where we were going for the gps. This gave us some comfort that our arrival time would not be too bad but we knew the turn by turn was going to be poor once we got into Miami.

The only issue for the 3+ hours on the turnpike was tolls. Not having any experience with it, we were pretty unsure what was going to happen. The first ones were easy. Pay your money and you're on the way. The next was confusing before we got there, but easy once we got there. You get a slip of paper which you use on the far side to pay. The last ones are the problem. License plate or sunpass. Either one is tricky for a renter. We are not sure whether we used one, but I have no idea how we pay for that. I am expecting charges to our visa - plus service charges.

Arrival in Miami around 1130am but without clear directions. Between my previously downloaded Port of Miami directions from Google, and a high level map we had picked up at a rest stop, we had a vague idea how to get to where we were going. Exit 2c, several wrong turns, horrible traffic, horns honking, we essentially accidentally found it! This was our last really worrying milestone.

The rental location was quite easy to work with and they had shuttles running to the port. Constantly it seemed. We immediately met others heading to the ship and our excitement and relief rose. DW dealt with returning the car and I dealt with getting the luggage onto the van.



Shuttle to the port took about 10 minutes and it was so exciting to see the boat before we even got close (sorry, the picture didn't turn out). Huge relief was falling off our shoulders. Nothing was likely going to stop us now! The shuttle dropped us right at where the porters were dealing with luggage. Everyone, please remember that you need to pack everything into your carry on that you want for the first four or five hours. DW had forgotten there was some things we needed in the luggage for the meet and greet so we had to sneak to the side to dig through luggage with porters trying to help straighten us out. It was highly confusing to them. Kim gave one porter a bag of candy intended for the candy swap.

Bags dropped off outside with the porters, we headed inside. The line to get inside was about 20 people deep but was crawling in constantly. It turned out security was checking our documents and we were not really in line yet.

Once we got inside, things slowed down. It turned out the line was slow because there wasn't enough room inside the building for people to wait to be called. The gaggles of people were preventing movement outside of the check in lines. It was a little bit of slow-moving chaos. Once we got close enough, we were able to get into the silver castaway club line with only about 5 families ahead of us. By now it was about 1215 and we'd missed our check-in time by 45 minutes but no matter. We were shortly checked in with boarding group 8 (I believe).

And for the first time, in over 24 hours, we were back to breathing normally. We actually had to idle around to wait. Although there was no where comfortable to sit or stand because of the shape of the room. But we did have a fun time recognizing people we had cruised with before and said hello to a few of them.

About 30 or so minutes later, they called our group! Time to bask in all that is Disney for a glorious 14 nights.



Rooms were ready quite late I felt. I can't recall the exact time, but it must have been getting close to 5pm as we were discussing at dinner how we thought we would not have time to change before dinner, but in the end there was enough. Because of that, most people had their carry on at the meet and greet. It was a very full room. This picture doesn't quite do it justice.



We had done a candy swap at the meet and greet. That's what's on the table. Many people sure went all out. Cases of candy. Every child (that wanted it) had as much candy as they wanted. A fair bit might have gone home with me as well. There was lots left over and it was to be taken to the kids meet and greet the next day. We didn't attend, but I'm sure it was appreciated.

A few pics taken of Miami after the meet and greet and before supper.





I realize I was still in a bit of a daze when we took this picture. I know Kim knows what it's for, but we stumbled into this and I didn't really know what it was all about.



And the sail away party. I realize belatedly that we should have been on the main deck and dancing away. I normally would leave room for the kids, but there were so few on this cruise.



Looking back on the day while at supper, I realize the that Fort Lauderdale option probably would have been fine but we were so focused on reducing risk. We had heard that they were still boarding people after 4pm. Well, more stories to tell.

Dinner was the typical "Let the Magic Begin" menu.



We had the following. It was interesting how well everyone at the table remembered the dishes. It was a point of conversation more than once. Perhaps Disney needs to think about shaking it up a little more.











We didn't make it too late that evening. We swore we'd do better, but we went to bed fairly early.

 

[SailingScout]

Great report so far! We will be on the EBPC in October so I'm very grateful to anyone doing a report!

 

[wilma-bride]

Great report so far! We will be on the EBPC in October so I'm very grateful to anyone doing a report!

I am doing one over on the UK trip report board if you are interested in reading.

 

[GoofyNewfie]

Oh my goodness, you sound so calm aout the whole travel delay thing but I would have been totally freaking out. When I sae Kim's update on Facebook that morning, I must admit my heart dropped into my stomach so I was relieved to hear you had made it.

As far as Secret River was concerned, I as another of those people who was worried because of the spiders and, although I had a bit of a moment when our guide was telling us how big the spiders were, we didn't see any (not that I was aware of anyway, although Im fairly sure my group would not have told me if they had seen any) and the water levels were pretty low. There weren't actually any points at which I felt uncomfortable and the water was never really higher than my chest. So Kim would most likely have been OK - maybe next time. In fact, the worst part of that excursion was actually the ferry ride over to Playa del Carmen and, for that reason, we will probably stay where we are (i.e. do a local excursion) next time we visit Cozumel.

Looking forward to reading more now that the travel issues are over.

Well, I have to admit that although perhaps I wasn't totally freaking out, there was more than the odd bit of freak-age throughout the journey to the boat...

For a point of clarity, it's me that would have had problems at the Secret River. Great problems likely. I cannot even do cold showers for fear of drowning. I get a little irrational around water. Kim has issues with seasickness on ferries. Cruise ships don't trigger it nearly so badly.

Great report so far! We will be on the EBPC in October so I'm very grateful to anyone doing a report!

Thanks. I'm sure you'll love it. We loved ours. Enough to be pondering 2017.

 

[SailingScout]

I am doing one over on the UK trip report board if you are interested in reading.

Thanks for letting me know!

 

[Benchley]

It'd have been blindly panicking with the fog delays. I don't know how you kept so calm

 

[ShellB8585]

Thank you for sharing! enjoying all of these PC TRs ready for the EB in Oct

 

[Flossbolna]

Great start to your trip report!! I am really looking forward to reading your experience on the WBPC since we did the same cruise last year. It will be fun to compare!

What a scary travel day (or better: travel days!), you must have been so relieved once you saw the ship! After that you definitely needed a vacation! How convenient that you were just about to start one.

 

[lisah0711]

What a scary start to your adventure but it sounds like you had a wonderful time!

Subscribing so I can follow my fellow EBPC cruisers around the PC trip report threads.

 

[Pinkyfinger]

I can hardly wait for your next chapter! I'm going with DH and DD and Dson in law in May! Maybe I should book airline travel a week in advance. Lol

 

[sdjen]

Great report so far. Wondering who your servers were and if you liked them? We are on the wonder next month and want to request a great serving team. Thanks!!

 

[disneyjunkie]

 

[GoofyNewfie]

Sorry for the slow next piece. Being away from work for so long was trouble. And just had to fit in a trip to London. Back from that now.

Update for the previous day:

I hadn't mentioned how they did the extra bookings on departure day. I thought it was pretty well handled but was surprised there were so few people wanting to book anything. If there had been more people, it might have been crazier. In Triton's, they had various stations set up. Palo, the Spa, Tastings, etc. I either missed this on our previous EBTA or they had changed the process. We were able to pretty quickly add a tasting and more Palo and then get to the Meet & Greet. I thought it went well as we didn't have much time and we were still able to get to the Meet & Greet. Palo was indicating that they had lots of time slots free.

As well, forgot to mention that we heard that the 2 main topics of the Meet & Greet was "Did the Tim Tams make it?" and "Did Kim and Chris make it?" Thanks everyone for thinking about us!

Day 2: Sea Day

I'm the early riser between us and a habit from our EBTA was trying to get sunrise pictures. It turned out that the navigator was incorrect about the timing sunrise. I had missed it. But managed to get a couple of nicer shots. I'd noticed an odd thing while departing the room (2141), the hallway smelled dramatically of bacon. For a day or so I was calling the room "The Bacon Room" in my head, but throughout the cruise, the smells changed. They were always tasty smells.




As I wandered the boat, basking in the fact that we'd made it and I was finally on vacation, I could see a few little islands and what looked like a larger island in the distance. Interested in where this was, I went looking for the map and snapped a picture. I'm less ashamed to admit that I didn't realize it was Cuba after talking to quite a few other people that didn't realize we'd be getting so close.



After reading Flossbolna's previous WBPC TR, I was very interested in attending the Cruise director's morning show. This became of one of the highlights of the cruise and I think we might have only missed 1. It's a great idea. I brought Kim some coffee and dragged her to the show on time. She really enjoyed it too. My only real complaint (but it's not much of a complaint) was the timing of it. It was tough to make Triton's for breakfast. I had intended to do more breakfasts there. However, I didn't have any real complaints about Beach Blanket for breakfast. It was always easy enough to find somewhere to sit. And I dearly love their donuts - a little too much I suppose.

For most of the morning, we sailed past Cuba and got much closer than I assumed that we could.



Another thing we did most sea days was the Art of Entertainment cooking classes. Today was Seared Arctic Char. I'm allergic to shellfish so am too nervous eating any fish but I always enjoyed the wine pairings. I didn't get any pictures. I'm thinking I didn't typically get any pictures, hmm....

Today was Captain Ken Puckett's first show. Captain Puckett is an expert on the Canal. I'm afraid we missed all of his shows but did catch some on the television as they were showing past shows constantly. It was probably our loss that we missed him as many people we talked to were huge fans. We'd had a bad/boring experience on previous cruises with other similar talks, but Captain Puckett was much better. We talked to him several times. He was staying in our hallway. He's a very nice guy.

This cruise had dancing lessons from some experts, but we didn't attend any of them bit did see them dance a couple of times. I didn't talk to anyone who did the lessons first hand but heresay on the ship was that they were very good.

After lunch we did the shopping talk. Anna, Dear Anna. You got us too excited about shopping with your secret shopping weapon - the multi-buy! If you are indeed interested in shopping at the stops we did, the multi-buy certainly seemed to be the way to try to get a deal.

At 3pm was our cruise group's pub crawl. We were not any part of the organizing group so I am not quite sure what happened but I suppose too many people wanted to participate? We over-filled Diversions while the staff was trying to do Trivia. We tried to stay, but it was too uncomfortable in the room so we left ahead of the group to the Promenade lounge where Anna was doing the gemstone seminar.

We were main dining at 5:45. I prefer this time. It was Taste of the Caribbean. I didn't get any decent pics. I didn't put it in my notes, but we realized pretty early that all the meat was coming out overdone to our request. We all started ordering one level down (ie medium instead of medium-well).

The premier for Age of Ultron was the show for the night. It was good. People clapped at the end.

 

[GoofyNewfie]

I can hardly wait for your next chapter! I'm going with DH and DD and Dson in law in May! Maybe I should book airline travel a week in advance. Lol

We've pretty much decided that we would much prefer to tag on a couple of extra days to the beginning of a cruise from now on, rather than the end. However, our airport is doing a major upgrade and planes will be able to land in fog after this.

Great report so far. Wondering who your servers were and if you liked them? We are on the wonder next month and want to request a great serving team. Thanks!!

I'm still fretting what to say about our wait staff. On my DW and mine's previous EBTA cruise, we had Strawberry who was simply amazing and hard to live up to perhaps. On my shorter Caribbean with my DS only, the wait staff was poor I'm sorry to say. For this cruise, our wait staff was good but we struggled a bit - especially in the early days. We had the distinct impression that something was going on at times. However, we certainly were not going to pry. We were happily overfed and became friends. I'm not going to expect better than that.

 

[figment52]

My heart was beating a little faster than normal as I read about your fog issues. I am so glad I booked two days early for my trip in the fall. I hate to worry about missing the beginning of a cruise/tour of any kind. So pleased that the ship didn't leave without you/ Can't wait to hear more.

 

[Saamh]

For this cruise, our wait staff was good but we struggled a bit - especially in the early days. We had the distinct impression that something was going on at times. However, we certainly were not going to pry. We were happily overfed and became friends. I'm not going to expect better than that.

A coworker who was on your WBPC said she was told only 2 of the 3 MDRs were open each night and the servers each had a large number of tables to take care of at each meal. Did you notice this?

 

[Flossbolna]

After reading Flossbolna's previous WBPC TR, I was very interested in attending the Cruise director's morning show. This became of one of the highlights of the cruise and I think we might have only missed 1. It's a great idea. I brought Kim some coffee and dragged her to the show on time. She really enjoyed it too. My only real complaint (but it's not much of a complaint) was the timing of it. It was tough to make Triton's for breakfast. I had intended to do more breakfasts there.

Yay!! I am so happy to hear that someone learned something from my trip report that added to his enjoyment of the cruise!! And I find it interesting to read your comment about Tritons and realise that this was one of the reasons why I ended up not going there as often as I had thought before the cruise either. But I would not have wanted to have to get up earlier for it!!

Who was your assistant cruise director?