21 day trip report LIVE from Amtrak, Disneyland & EB Repo through the Panama Canal!

[poohmomof5]

1) When we were leaving the Los Angeles harbor, we saw some Sea Lions frolicking, that was fun. A few of us also saw a group of dolphins jumping of the side of the boat. Andrew and I also saw 3 Sea Lions somewhere on our sea day, they were just floating alongside the ship for a little. We saw flying fish too. At one point, we could see about 20 at a time leaping out of the water and skimming along the top until they disappeared back into the ocean. I love to see Marine Wildlife!
2) They are showing a lot of movies on the ship: Kung Fu Panda, Ironman, WallE, the Premier of Cheetah Girls part 3 (I think), and many more.
3) The weather has been great…sometimes it is a little too hot, but it is August and we were expecting that. No rain, lots of sun, and a nice breeze!

 

[poohmomof5]

Of our whole trip, I was looking forward to today and the Panama Canal crossing day the most! We had booked a surprise for Emily’s birthday. I was very nervous about today as the ship anchors in the middle of the bay and tender boats take the ship’s passengers back and forth to the pier. Because of that, this port is more likely to be cancelled due to bad weather and/or bad seas. I was okay with that, but I just didn’t want to let Emily down. So when I woke up to clear sky and a very gentle breeze, I was thrilled! For our day, we booked a private charter sailboat and snorkel tour. I am so excited!!!

First of all, Cabo is beautiful. I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I found it to be better than I anticipated and I can’t wait to come back here!

Back to our day…we got off the ship and met our guide right on the pier. He was there just as promised! He took us to a sailboat that was decorated in balloons and a sign for Emily’s birthday. It was perfect!!!!!!!

We got on board and got our safety instructions and away we went! We went out to a few hundred yards before Land’s End (that is the end of the Baha Peninsula of Mexico) and we anchored for about an hour of snorkeling. The 4 big kids went in and started moving along the shoreline to some rocks where our guide said there would be lots of fish. Jessica and I saw around the boat for a little before she went back into the boat with dad and I joined the kids. The snorkeling wasn’t that great until we got close to the rocks, once we were there, it was awesome. Emily complained a few times about getting bit by something, but I assured her that none of the fish would bite. We say lots of colorful fish, big a small. At one point, Sarah said “you guys look, we are surrounded”! There were at least 75-100 very large fish swimming around us and right below us. It was kind of intimidating, but very very fun. We made a plan of attack as a joke, but in about a minute, they swam away. Whew! Every once in awhile, we would see some very large fish jump out of the water, I made a note to myself to ask our guide what those were. Emily and Andrew headed back to the boat and Casey, Sarah and I swam around one of the rocks and headed back. Just as we emerged around the rocks, I saw it…A jellyfish! Oh my, I tried to swim away from it and I made it without getting stung. I wasn’t about to say anything to the kids as I knew they would freak out! The one I saw was super tiny (kind of like the squishy in Finding Nemo). We made our way back to the boat and dried off. Andrew said that Emily complained of another sting on the way back to the boat with him. I asked her about it and she said it still really hurt. I told her about the Jellyfish and the guide said that was probably what got her. She was pretty proud to say she had been stung by 3 jellyfish on her birthday. What a great story for back to school!  Only one of the stings was still bothering her so the guide sprayed it with Windex with Vinegar. They say the vinegar helps it and it seemed to work and she never complained about it again.

After we got on the boat, the guides had lunch ready for us and some beverages. We ate while we sailed around Lands End and say Los Arcos (the beautiful rock arch) and the Pacific Window and the Sea Lion rock. It was all very beautiful and pleasant and fun! It was a perfect day, but a little hot. We continued to sail around for about another hour at one point getting stuck with no wind and in the midday hear. That got a little uncomfortable and Jessie and Emily were not feeling great. But we got moving again and drank some water and everyone was fine.

I did finally ask the guide what the things I could see jumping out of the water were, and he said they were Manta Rays. Oh my! We saw about 20 more during our sail and it was amazing. They were huge and would jump about 2-5 feet out of the water. We also saw a large marlin playing with a can, and of course, the sea lions basking in the sun.

After we got back to the pier, we found a store with air conditioning and pretended to shop in it for about 15 minutes to get Jessie cooled down and she perked right up and was feeling much better. We walked through a little market and everyone decided to go back to the ship except Emily and me. Emily wanted to spend some of her birthday money from Grandma. We saw a beautiful beaded dress that she really wanted. I figure if it was less than $40 I would get it for her. We asked and it was $15! Yippee. So we got it and a few little souvenirs and headed towards the tenders. On the edge of the pier swimming along was a super cute puffer fish. He was adorable. So we watched him for awhile and noticed numerous other little and big fish swimming around. We probably stayed there for 30-40 minutes just watching fish swim by. It was very relaxing and a great way to end our day in Cabo.

We went back to the ship and got to sit on top of the tender, when we started moving, the driver asked Emily if she wanted to drive! That was really awesome. She hesitated and I said, go ahead! So she did and I told them it was her birthday. Then everyone sang happy birthday to her and she drove along. What an unexpected surprise! We went back to the room to find everyone there cooling off. We chilled out and went out on the verandah to watch the ship sail away at 5pm. She had been here all summer long and as we were leaving, all of the tenders were in a little formation and honked and waved good bye. Who knows when she will be back here? That was a nice little send off!

The show this evening was the comedy guy, Ron Pearson. We really enjoyed him during the Welcome Aboard show so we all went. It was another really funny show and everyone enjoyed it. We even bought one of his DVDs. We had dinner at Lumiere’s and they had a little Beauty and the Beast show during the meal. This is new to us, but I guess it is a regular presentation now. After dinner they brought a cake and everyone sang to Emily. The cake was a chocolate with whipped cream and was really one of the best cakes I have EVER had! It was a fantastic day and I can’t wait for tomorrow!

 

[poohmomof5]

We have another exciting day planned; we have a Zip Line tour planned in the mountains of the Sierra Madres. I am really excited yet nervous about today. Our tour didn’t start until noon, so we had a relaxing morning and headed off the ship at about 11:15. We did the excursion outside of Disney, but I thought I did enough research that I was pretty comfortable. We split into 2 groups because of the little one. Andrew, Casey and I were doing the noon tour and Jay, Sarah, and Emily were doing the 2:00 tour. They would bring Jessica with them and when we were done, we would take her and they would go. Hopefully it would all go as planned.

So, the boys and I got off the ship and had to find a cab to the Los Veranos tour office. We found a driver and he agreed to take us for $20. That was a little more than they had told me to expect, but we were running a little behind and I was fine with it. I decided I just wouldn’t tip the guy. So we drove to the office, it was about a 25 minute ride through all the different areas of PV. Some of the drive was along the coastline and we saw some very pretty old buildings and some very large sandcastles. When we got there, we gave the driver $20 and he told me I needed to give him $10 more, I said “no…you said $20” (he specifically said at the beginning $20 for your whole party), I showed him the number on the bill and walked away. During the drive, the driver acted like he didn’t know where the office was and kept asking me if I was sure I had prepaid as he could do something better for me. It was kind of unpleasant and I was happy to have made it and a little discouraged at his tricks. But we were there and I was confident I did the right thing! Good thing I had done my homework!

We got into the office, checked in and waited about 5 minutes before they started loading the bus. We had a very fun, happy driver who gave us a tour on the way to the Zip lines. It was almost an hour long drive but was very pretty and very bumpy!

We got to the little Veranos Village and drove through. It was kind of a realistic look into real life Mexico. Lots of farm animals roaming free, very small little houses with very few windows etc. We even saw a little school. It was very quaint, but a looked a little impoverished.

When we arrived, we got off the bus and got some initial instructions. We then went to the safety orientation and got our gear. It included gloves, a helmet, a harness, and a hook. They spent a long time going over everything so we knew what to expect and how everything worked. They added some humor as well. It was nicely done and I felt good about what we were about to do. Then they sent us up the trail to the first zipline. The first one was very short and flat, it is meant to be a practice run. I do have to admit, when they were hooking me up for the first time, I was nervous. But away I went and it was just fine. The next one was longer and steeper and I did fine too and now I wasn’t nervous at all. The boys were doing great and seemed to be enjoying themselves! The 4th line was the longest and highest. Almost a quarter mile long OVER A RIVER! That was a trip and after that, the boys and I were exhilarated!!!! Wow, what an adventure. There were 14 lines in all and we loved it. At one point, Casey said this was the coolest thing he had ever done. That made my day! It was very hot and we were in a rainforest. I was sweating just standing still, but we didn’t even care. At one point it started raining and it felt great. The guides were AWESOME!!! They were very playful and really added to the experience. They were also very safety oriented and made it an awesome adventure.

After we were done, they had a complimentary beverage and we had the option of buying pictures and DVDs of the day. We bought both and just as planned, the bus arrived with the other part of our family. So we took Jessica and wished them well and sent them off to have a great adventure.

They had some monkeys and other animals there that you could pet and play with and feed. So we did that and had some lunch and even had a tarantula crawl on us. It was a very nice place and very fun!!!!

We then took an open air bus back to the ship. That was a whole separate adventure! Keep in mind that we were in the rain forest and the roads were bumpy at best. It started raining and evening thundered a few times on the way back. We were very high in the mountains and we were surrounded by the clouds and mist. It was beautiful and a little bit wet. Jessica was a trooper about it and never complained, but she did cover her ears the entire drive back as it was a little loud. I figure as long as she wasn’t crying, we were fine! We got back to the office and had to get a taxi back to the ship. I wasn’t looking forward to this after what happened last time. But I just bit the bullet and grabbed one. I knew to prearrange the price before we left and he told me $5 per person. That was what I expected, so we got in and thankfully had a very uneventful ride back. We were quite damp though but everyone was in a great mood and we relived the fun we had. The driver seemed happy this time when I paid him and we wondered up the pier to the ship.

We came back and found some open washing machines so I took advantage of Jessie’s great mood and I did some laundry and we dried off. Of course, the boys took off to play ping pong and swim. I happened to be on the verandah when Jay and the girls came back, so I yelled down and was thrilled to see that they were full of smiles too. They of course were zipping during the rain and thunder storm but they loved it as well.

The weird thing about Puerto Vallarta is that the pier area is a newer part and has a Walmart and Sam’s Club right across the street. We also saw McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, KFC, Office Max and Office Depot on our drive. Weird!

The show tonight was Los Capalores Mexican show, we didn’t go to it though as we didn’t get back until almost 6:00. At dinner, Jay and Andrew decided they would try to buy Ping Pong paddles at Walmart. Seems some obnoxious kids decided to smash the paddles they had here so they put out some yucky plastic ones. They had plenty of time as the ship doesn’t leave until 1:00am. Also, Toto our waiter said that they would be able to go into town for 2 hours after dinner for the first time this summer. He is Pilipino and they were going to a Pilipino bar for some Karaoke and 1 or 2 beers. He said they couldn’t drink more or security would give them a hard time when they get back. The boys didn’t have any luck at Walmart (they would have had no problem buying a soccer ball through) and when they got back, they all went to the movie Definitely Maybe and Jessie and I went to sleep. Oh, I almost forgot, our dinner was California themed.

Tomorrow is another sea day. We need it! 

 

[poohmomof5]

What a nice day this turned out to be! We all got to sleep in (for me that was 7am, the rest slept until well after 9am). I ate breakfast but somehow everyone else missed it. Jessica woke up and watched a show and chilled out, then we were about to go to breakfast, but then we read in our Navigator that they had an autograph signing. We didn’t know what that was, but decided to peak before we ate. It turned out that they had a table of 13 characters signing autograph books. Awesome! So we got in line and just made it. They cut the line off after us. So we got signatures from Mickey, Minnie, Alice, White Rabbit, Peter Pan, Wendy, Cinderella, Snow White, Dopey, Max, Belle, Pinocchio and Stitch. Jessica and Emily enjoyed that. We then had to find an alternate meal and we swam and enjoyed the morning. Jay went to the Panama Canal presentation given by a former canal captain. He really enjoyed that and shared some interesting facts with me.

1) They estimate the transit fee that the Disney Magic will have to pay will be $330,000.
2) 4 or 5 canal pilots will be on board to help this huge ship make it through safely.
3) The Magic only has 2 feet on each side to make it through without hitting. On the way over, she made it without a scratch!
4) The highest fee ever paid to transit the canal was paid by our very own ship in May, we are likely to break that record next week.
5) Ships can pay extra to guarantee priority (we will do that, it is a 10% add on)
6) The Magic is a panamax ship; therefore she can’t go through at night.

I finally got to meet some of my Disboard friends at a scrapbook meet this afternoon! I had never been to one and it was really neat. We had 20 people each pick a theme and bring enough for everyone to make a page of that theme. We had some very experienced people and some newbie’s. I put myself as a moderate newbie. It was nice to chat with all the ladies and get some really neat stuff for scrap booking when I get home. I was really impressed with what people did.

I had to leave early though as we had High Tea at Palo. We have never done this before and I was excited to do it. Jessica cooperated and went to the club nicely where they were doing some fun activities. We had a great server named Sasha and we really enjoyed the tea and the food. We also were privileged and got to see a pod of dolphins playing in our wake while we sipped tea. It was wonderful! One of the other servers was chatting with us and we were talking about the dolphins and I told him that I have 3 things left on my “wildlife I want to see” list. They are Killer Whales, Humpback Whales and Sea Turtles. He said I need to do an Alaska Cruise. We told him we were going to do that soon and he said…matter of factly…”Wait until Disney sails there”. Is that inside info? Who knows, but I did hear that the new itineraries will be released in October. That isn’t too long from now!

After tea, we went back to the room and I decided to take some of the kids and go to the Castaway Club gathering. Usually it is in Diversions, but because there are so many of us, it was up by the Goofy pool. They had a nice buffet set up and free child and adult cocktails. They played a few videos of the making of the Magic, clips of celebrities that have cruised on the ship, the Christening of the ship etc. Then they had a drawing for 20 free clocks. My little Emily was the first name called! Out of 2036, she was the first. She was very excited and everyone clapped for her. That was really neat, because we put everyone’s name in the raffle and everyone else left because it was too hot, but she stuck it out with me! She deserved to win!!!!

After that gathering, we went back to the room and Andrew reported that he saw a HUGE sea turtle swimming past the ship just under the surface. How awesome. But now I am on a mission and I will have to keep my eyes peeled! They are in my top 3.

Tonight’s show was the puppeteer/comedian. The kids all went right away, and Jessica and I missed the first 30 minutes or so. But when we got there, he had just started a new skit with an audience volunteer. It was pretty funny and the guy that volunteered was perfect! The kids reported to me that they really liked the show. Anyone who can entertain teens is extra awesome in my book.

After that we headed to the Officer’s pin trading. This will be our first time trading on the ship. It is something I really enjoy. I bought about 50 pins on clearance at Disneystore.com so we are prepared. When we got there, we did some character pictures first. Jessica is so funny, whenever she notices she is getting a little crabby, she says “lets go to the lobby to see if there are any characters to take pictures with.” She knows that always cheers her up. We are having a little trouble with her at dinner every evening because we have 8:15 dinner and she hasn’t taken a nap yet. So she is a little difficult. Tonight was no exception and she was getting a little fussy and it wasn’t even dinner time yet. She really did a great job trading with the officers and other crew. It was fun to see her trade, but she didn’t want to leave for dinner. I should also note that it was the Captain’s reception and they served free drinks again. I had a really yummy Champaign drink. (Well, maybe 2 of them.) Then Jessie saw Chip and Dale and went to get in line as she hadn’t seen them yet and they closed the line right before we got there. UGH! She was pretty upset and we had to walk away with her crying. We then were stopped by a very nice Ship Officer and she asked Jessie what was wrong and Jess told her the story. She was really nice and told Jessica she would talk to Chip and Dale and tell them that Jessica said hi. That cheered Jessie up and she traded a pin and off we went to dinner.

Tonight’s dinner was the Parrot Cay themed Caribbean dinner. It was pretty good. I should mention that Andrew is a vegetarian and they have 2 vegetarian choices on the menu every evening and he is eating quite well. Toto usually just picks whatever he thinks Andrew will like the best and brings it out. Sometimes he brings both.

After dinner, they went to another movie and Jessica and I went to bed. It was a very nice day, but tomorrow I am going to try really hard to get Jessica to take a nap. Wish me luck!

 

[poohmomof5]

I woke up at about 5:45 and peeked outside to see us moving slowly along the coast of Acapulco. It was still very dark and the hills were filled with shimmering lights. It was beautiful. We docked and the sun came up right along with a nasty storm. I will be honest, I haven’t heard good things about Acapulco lately and we had cancelled our shore excursion and planned to wander over to the fort and call it a day. But with the horrible rain storm, I decided not to wake anyone up and just watch the city from our verandah. It rained on and off all morning and all aboard time was at 1:00pm. They had a sail away party planned, but couldn’t do it due to weather. I did see several people at the fort (it was right out my window and across the street). It was fun to be here as this is only the Magic’s 2nd time being here this year. We had lots of locals drive by, honk and wave.

That part was fun. 1:00 came and went and we didn’t leave and then there was the dreaded announcement…”Would passengers Mr. A of deck 8, Mr. B of deck 2, and Mr. C of deck 3 please call Guest Services.” So I went out to the Verandah and watched for 3 men to sprint back to the ship. I waited about 20 minutes and didn’t see anyone, but I did see Christian (our cruise director) walking around, talking to many people and into the walkie talkie. I was bored of waiting and went up to deck 9 to see if they were having the party. There was an officer in the elevator and I asked him what they would do. He said that they had a little bit more time to wait and give them a chance to make it back. He also said that an excursion hadn’t made it back yet. Yikes. But with the excursion, the ship will wait. About 20 minutes later we started moving and I went back to the room, the kids said that about 30 people came running back to the ship and were hustled on. Everyone watching from their verandahs was cheering them on. As soon as they were on, we left. I have no idea if those men made it back, but I assume they did as they never made another announcement. Can you even imagine missing the ship; they wouldn’t be able to get back on until Cartagena, Columbia. That is 4 days away. Yikes! That would be horrible.

I decided it was nap time so we had lunch and got Jessica settled in. She took a nice long nap and I got to update my trip report and enjoy the verandah. Almost as soon as we left Acapulco, the weather cleared and we had a gorgeous day. I was still determined to see more sea critters. Emily was with me and all the sudden we saw a school of flying fish. They are so much fun to watch so we sat outside and watched them fly in and out of the water. Then all of the sudden, we saw something floating right off the side of the ship. As it got closer, we realized it was 2 sea turtles!!!!! We were so excited. They were just floating along together and just chilling in the surf the ship caused. That was awesome. Shortly after that, we saw sea gulls and a pod of dolphins. Rock on! That just makes me so darn happy. I wanted to see the show tonight as I haven’t sent this one before, it is the “Art of the Story”. But alas, Jessica slept through it and the kids were having too much fun swimming in the very wavy pool. The seas were a little rougher today and that made the pool extra fun! Also, they were going to show the Premiere of the Cheetah Girls movie on the Ariel View screen, so they swam and watched that instead of the show and dinner.

After Jessica’s 4 hour nap (YIPPEE), we went to the lobby and visited with some new friends. We got pictures with Goofy, Mickey and Donald dressed up in their Mexican attire. Jessica also had a Mexican style dress on and it was fun for all of us. She was in such a good mood and I can tell the nap made a huge difference. We then went to dinner in Lumiere’s and had Mexican theme dinner. During dinner, Minnie dressed up in her lovely Mexican attire and 2 dancers came in and danced a little to announce the first deck party of the trip. Tonight is Minnie’s Fiesta Grande party. This is another new thing for us so we wanted to do that. About half way through dinner, our table neighbors took their daughter to the kids club, Jessica asked if she could go too. So I took her up and they had a Mexican Fiesta with games and piñatas. She was excited to stay so we got to enjoy some peace at dinner this evening.

After dinner we chatted with our servers about their life at home. Sounds like this job is very ideal for them, but they both have children that they rarely see. That makes me so sad for them. But they are able to provide very well for their families and they really do seem to enjoy what they do.

We headed up to the party with the girls and I stopped by the kids club to pick up Jessica, she didn’t want to leave!!!! Okay, so I got to go to the party and dance away. They had an awesome dessert buffet set up along with a burrito bar. Some of the staff were walking around with games to play. I played a guess the amount of beans in the jar. I won out of my group. People were guessing in the high 100’s and low 1000’s. I guessed 2400 and she said there was 2050 beans, go me! 

They had lot of dancing, confetti falling and piñata candy thrown about. It was a great time. Then they started the Cheetah Girls movie again, so we bailed out and went to get Jessica. She still didn’t want to leave, but I made her go and she cooperated. Off to bed we went all except for Sarah, she went to watch Step Up 2: The Streets. Night all!

 

[debg]

This trip report is just great!

If you don't mind, please tell Toto that Miss Kelly, Debbie, and Scott say hello.

Also - I see you're from Milwaukee - we were just there a couple of weeks ago to catch a Brewer's game! Great town for a nice weekend getaway! We're actually in WI a lot as DD goes to school at UW-Platteville.

Anyway, thanks again! It's so fun to relive the repo!

debg

 

[anewmac]

Sounds like you all are having a great time.. cant wait to read more!

 

[MagicMe]

Sounds like you're having an awesome trip so far. We'll be watching on Monday as you go through the PC (hopefully no submarine this time).

 

[Vanvmom]

We did the Los Veranos zip line when we went in 2005 & had a blast. We also had our own venture into the local Walmart, except we weren't looking for ping pong paddles. We were looking for gatorade as my middle son got a bit dehydrated during the zipline trip - still one of his favorite excursions we've done though. Did you get a chance to look at the photos & video footage from it yet? When we looked at ours we noticed in one photo a very large green snake hanging from a branch that we zipped right past! Good thing we couldn't see it while zipping!

Glad to hear you had a good time in Cabo too! The sea was really rough while we were there and our excursion got cancelled by the vendor. I would love to have seen the sights your family saw (squishy and all).

 

[PapaOohMowMow]

We are back home and all is well. Had a great time.
How wonderful for Emily (I am so happy for her), Jessie and everyone.
Going lakeside either tomorrow evening or Tuesday morning.
Will be watching web cam on Monday.

LOL

 

[TheDisneyGirl02]

Loving the report so far!!!!! Have a wonderful trip through the canal!

 

[mygoldpaws]

Patiently waiting for the Canal day update! I bet the internet got real bad. Not nearly as many blogging the EB as there was for the WB. I was supposed to be on the WB and followed the blogs daily!!

 

[xbwkq1v]

subbing.... Love your report!

 

[magic1bubbles]

wow! my dh & i are taking our first cruise in january. we too are traveling by train to get to the magic. it is a great relaxing time if you have the extra time to travel. every line i read in your travel tale entices me even more to attempt this next mode of travel! neither one of us has yet to take a cruise so we are looking forward to it with some apprehension and your travel log has made it that much more tempting!
i can hardly wait to hear of your next adventure with the family and all the fun things you do on board. safe journey.....

 

[poohmomof5]

Hi everyone,

Right now we are floating very slowly past some mountains in Columbia. It is a beautiful sight and we can even see snow in the tops of some of them. We don't have very far to go to get to Aruba so we are crawling along. Here are some more updates!

 

[poohmomof5]

We are almost halfway through the cruise. We had a great day to celebrate! First thing this morning is we went to the Princess picture session. Snow White, Cinderella and Belle were in the lobby to visit with the kids. While we waited, we saw a pod of dolphins swimming alongside the ship. They are so beautiful!

We got our pictures and then had a special surprise. Last night, Kat from the Hotel Director’s office called and said that she told Chip and Dale how sad Jessica was about missing them and they agreed to meet her for a special photo and autograph session. She said to meet them at 10:45, so we did that and all the girls and I were there. It was fun and Chip and Dale were really fun with the kids. What a nice memory! Thanks Kat!!!!!

After that we went to brunch at Lumiere’s. We got our coffee and juice and some cereal and I remember that I was supposed to meet Sarah for a game show. So I excused myself and met Sarah at Diversions. I don’t think I have been to this place more than once before. It is neat because it has about 40-50 games that you could sit and play with your family. I will be back here someday in the next week!

The game was a Disney Version of Wheel of Fortune. We were on team three and we did okay. We were losing pretty badly until the very last round. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was a dramatic finish we won! We each got a medal.

This afternoon we did a few fun activities including getting registered for the best boat competition. My husband is excited about doing that with the kids. They have a week to build a boat using random items and then they are judged in one of three categories.

We had Tea with Alice this afternoon as well; it was really cute but quite short, probably only about 25 minutes. Alice showed everyone how to properly pour tea, hold out your pinkies and sip away. They had apple juice instead of tea. They also had cookies for everyone. It was nice and relaxing and we got to do pictures with Alice at the end.

We were supposed to have Palo this evening, but we found out that we were going to have the Show dinner at Animators and we knew that Jessica would really like that so I went up to Palos and asked if I could change it, they said sure and gave me the same time tomorrow evening. How nice!

Then we swam and had nap time and the show tonight was the Hypnotist. The kids and I heard it was supposed to be really funny so we wanted to go. Jessie’s nap lasted too long, so the kids went by themselves. They really enjoyed it and said it was super funny.

Then we went to the game show “So you think you know your family” in Rockin’ Bar D. Sarah especially loves going to the game shows! They do a nice job of picking who gets to participate, they give you numbers when you walk in the door and if they call out numbers, so everyone has a fair chance of playing. They called off 5 numbers and Sarah’s number was called as the last one! So she needed to pick an adult to play with her and she picked me. They first sent the kids out of the room and asked each of us 3 questions and we had to see if we could guess what the kids would answer. I got ALL 3 of Sarah’s correct! We were the only one with all 3 correct answers. Then we adults were sent out of the room and they had to answer 4 questions. One of the girls picked was 5 years old and had some really cute answers…her mom looked to me to be at least 40 but the girl said 25. It was cute. Sarah guessed all of mine correctly except MY AGE! WHAT? I suppose, I did just have a birthday, but come on. Later she told me that she knew what year I was born in, she just forgot what year it was NOW! Oh my, good thing school starts the day we get back. So we tied with another family to win the game and got hats that say “winner” on them.

Dinner was the show at Animator’s Palate; it is always a nice dinner and was fun for Jessica. The only issue that I noticed was that some of the lighting wasn’t working. It is perfect timing for the ship to go to dry dock and get a new makeover. She could use a little sprucing up. Mind you, she is still fantastic and you would never know that they are giving her a makeover because they still keep everything perfectly up to par. But she needs a little touch up. For example, on days that it rains hard, there is leaking in some of the halls and my son said that a bathroom was flooded on deck 9. So, just a few minor fixes and she will be as good as new! Our server told us that she is getting all new flooring, new carpet, new window treatments etc. He said that they take the ship up to Virginia. He also said that they will get 2 days off while they are in dry dock, but otherwise they work hard and help out the contractors. The good news for them is that they will only have to work regular hours like 8-5.

Today was had several more dolphin and turtle sightings and lots of flying fish and lots of birds! I find that a little weird as we are seemingly out in the middle of nowhere. I am really enjoying the verandahs as some of us just love to sit out there and chill.

Our room keeper is really awesome. Very respectful of the fact that half of us sleep until noon or so (the teens). His name is Geronimo and he makes awesome towel animals too!

 

[poohmomof5]

The day started with a surprise at the end of the evening last night. As we were leaving dinner, Toto said that we had Character breakfast the next morning. So instead of getting to the spa early, we all went to breakfast. Our servers knew I had to leave early, so they made sure to get my food to me quickly and I even got so see Goofy and Pluto before I had to leave. The breakfast was at 9:45am. I think it is later because we have 2nd seating. I ran out and headed to the spa.

I met Amy and she took me to my Spa Villa. I got the 2 hour “alone time” package. The Spa Villa has a private verandah with a hot tub outside and a day chair. The inside has the treatment area with peaceful music playing. Amy had a pitcher of water with cucumbers in it waiting for me. She asked me several questions and then put some fun stuff and bubbles in hot tub and left me for about 40 minutes. I sat in the hot tub and enjoyed the quiet and the view. We had some birds flying alongside the ship that were fun to watch as well. Then she came back and got me and I got to enjoy the massage part of my package. That was very relaxing and she did a great job. After the massage, I went back to the verandah and she had some tea and fresh fruit prepared and 4 chocolate covered strawberries. Yummy! Just as my time was done, I saw another pod of dolphins cavorting in the seas. That always makes me so happy!

I ran out and discovered that I was there for 2.5 hours. How pleasant and nice to get away. I really enjoyed that time!

We basically had to go right to the wine tasting seminar. So Andrew agreed to hang out with Jessica while we went to the Wines of France tasting. It was enjoyable. The Master Sommelier that presents is from the Napa Rose at Grand California hotel. His name is Michael Jordan and he is NOT a basketball player. He is a fun presenter and loves to talk! We sat with a nice lady who was on her 21st Disney cruise. Wow!

After the wine tasting we did our usual afternoon fun. Swimming, ping pong, ice cream etc. Tonight is the Prince and Princess dinner for Semi Formal night. So we got our tiaras and gowns on and went to Twice Charmed. That is a really nice show with lots of music and a good story line. Jessica seemed to enjoy it as well. After the show we did more character pictures and rounded up the rest of the family for dinner. The boys didn’t want to go so it was just the girls. We took them to the dining room and ordered food for Jessica and left the 3 girls in the good hands of our servers. Then off to Palo we went.

Our server was Cecilia. She was very pleasant and knowledgeable. The menu is just a little different than the last time we were here but still had the usual favorites. I had the tomato and mozzarella salad and the signature steak for dinner, Jay had a salad and the steak as well. It was good and the atmosphere is nice but we both felt like we had been there done that and we really prefer to be with our regular servers. The great part about it though was that we got to have nice adult conversation and not cut up anyone else’s food. Just as we were starting dessert we got a page from the kid club. Sarah was supposed to drop Jessica off after their dinner and we would pick her up when we were done. Jay went and called the room to see if the kids would pick her up and they were very willing to do that. So we finished dessert and headed to the room. We chatted with some of the kids about their evening and then noticed that Jessie wasn’t there. Casey had taken her to get something to drink and hadn’t come back. After about 30 minutes I went to go see what they were up to. They were watching The Incredibles on the big screen up on the top deck. It was near the end so I joined them. It is really fun to be outside on deck watching movies at 11 at night. There were probably 40-50 people watching. Some were kids sleeping of course too! As the movie was finishing up, Jay joined us. He probably wondered what happened to all of us too! It was kind of funny. After the movie, we called it a night and went to bed. All in all it was a great day, but too many things happened to be scheduled that took me away from the kids. I will have to try a little better next time.

I almost forgot 2 things, when we got to the room after dinner; there was a Ducky Williams lithograph of the Magic with some Peter Pan characters in each of our staterooms and the stars at night are beautiful.

 

[poohmomof5]

Today is the big day and I am so excited for it! When we went to bed last night we asked the kids when they wanted to be wakened for the big day. Andrew wanted to get up ASAP and the rest of the kids said to wait until we got to the first lock. We set every alarm we could find and had a wake up call. Of course, I was too excited and woke up at 5:55 and we weren’t even supposed to be getting our pilot until 6:30am. I could see the glittering lights of Panama in the distance and got my camera and everything all set. I got Andrew up when I could see the pilot boat approaching. Jay wondered around on deck and said that it was crazy up there.

Last night Christian announced that they were removing all the chairs from the forward viewing area on deck 10 and that no one could put any there. I think that it because they had some issues on the last crossing with some people sleeping up there and trying to save spots etc.

So, we had a lot of activity with different boats coming to the ship picking up and/or dropping people off. We just hung out on the verandah for awhile watching all the activity. Then Andrew, Emily and I went up to Topsiders for breakfast. It was pretty quiet up there and already quite hot. It was only 7am too…After breakfast we wondered around on deck 10 and watched as we made our way towards the first lock. We were right on schedule as we went under the bridge of the Americas. It is a beautiful bridge and we were excited to be on our way.

They had a narrator board the ship as well and he came on over the loud speakers and on a few of the television channels with lots of good info about what we were doing etc. As we approached the locks he pointed out some crocodiles on our side of the ship. That was neat! We decided because of the heat and crowds that we were going to watch from the room. So we got to see the “mighty mules” up close. They are the little trains that we are hooked up to on each side to keep us from moving side to side. We watched them hook up their cables and we slowly made our way into the first lock. Since the process takes awhile, we wondered up to deck 10 and found some people still sleeping on some deck chairs about midship. We thought that was pretty funny as they went through the effort to save some chairs but were sleeping through everything! They had photographers wondering around taking pictures of people and even had some photographers on the ground taking pictures of everyone on their verandahs. That is a really nice touch. On the other side of the ship from our side, there was a huge container ship going through the locks. That was interesting to watch as well. The actual process of going up or down was pretty short (I think someone said it took 8 minutes) but we couldn’t feel ourselves moving or anything.

Andrew and I went and watched a little from deck 4 and played “Panama Canal Shuffleboard”. Same rules as regular shuffle board, we just did it in the canal.
Disney is really awesome at doing the little extras and today was no different. They had people walking around with pastry trays and had water, lemonade and coffee stations set up all around the ship. We really appreciated the water as it was so darn hot! That reminds me of another nice Disney extra; when we got back to the ship in Cabo there were other cruise ships docked as well, but Disney was the only one with hand wipes and water or lemonade waiting for us even before we got on the ship. They sure know how to do it right!

It took us several hours during the morning to make it through the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks and into Gatun Lake. We spent a lot of time on our verandah watching. I estimate it takes and hour per lock. Our side of the ship had the Railroad lines on it and we saw a train come through. Again, something fun and interesting to watch.

They had a deck BBQ set up for everyone as well with some really good food choices. The kids wanted to swim, but the pool was packed! So we did some ping pong and ice cream. As we made our way through the beautiful canal, we marveled at how very impressive it is that they were able to do this. They said the switchboard was installed in 1910 and they still use it. Amazing! As Jessica and I were wondering around the ship, we noticed Ducky Williams and the “Fab 5” signing autographs. We rushed up to the room, got the lithographs and a book dad has and got them all signed. That is a nice touch!

As it hit about 2pm, I checked the pools and they were much less busy, so I got the kids and they all swam. Jessica really like the Mickey pool and can play in it for hours. We put so much sun screen on them, but she got a little pink and Sarah got pretty pink too. It just seems that for Sarah, there is nothing we can do except cover her skin. Being this far south even the best sunscreen can’t seem to protect her from everything. Everyone else seems to be surviving the sun very well.

All of the sudden, we noticed it getting pretty breezy and dark. I went to the back of the ship and saw some storms coming. This was just as we were getting to the Gatun locks. The storm can quickly and loudly. It was one heck of a thunderstorm. As it was still far away, I convinced Jessie to get out of the pool, it was easy as she heard the first thunder crash. I took her and got her to sleep quite quickly. The kids stayed in the big pool until they got kicked out. The storm was pretty loud and there was so much lightening. Casey and a bunch of people saw lightning strike the water and they all were amazing. I couldn’t believe all the people out in the rain with their fancy cameras trying to get pictures of the lightning. It was a really interesting part of the day and Jay and I agreed we were happy to have had the storm. We did sit still for quite awhile when we got to the Gatun locks. I am not sure if it was from weather or a back up. But we were delayed quite a bit. But it didn’t matter at all for us as we have late dinner. The early dinner people had to miss the last locks if they wanted to eat, but I don’t know how much or if people cared about that. The storm relented and the large container ship next to us started to make its way into the locks. We went in next to them about 30 minutes later. We were very fortunate that we were in the left lock this time so we could watch the APL container ship go through right from our balcony! They had a very friendly crew and during the entire passage through those locks, they waved, whistled and shouted. They seemed to be having as much fun as we were. They took lots of pictures of us and we took lots of pictures of them! It was no longer storming, but lightly rained the rest of the transit. We continued to wander around the ship seeing the transit from other angles. We heard the container hit scrape the edges a few times. Oops. We even went to deck 3 and were below ground for a little bit. It was a great place to see exactly how close we were to the sides of the lock. It was dark and the kids were swimming still and we were exiting the last lock. I went to Deck 9 aft and it was an amazing view of the locks all lit up and some ships coming into the locks behind us. So I got the kids out of the pool and we watched us maneuver out of the last lock, we watched our ropes get dropped from the mules and the lock doors close. It was a great ending to a really amazing and interesting day.

The show this evening was WallE playing in the Walt Disney theater, the kids wanted to see it in there, but we knew it was playing daily for the rest of the cruise, so they kept swimming. Dinner this evening was a special “When the East meets the West” theme. They had special commemorative menus for us to keep as well. We had a nice dinner and off to bed we went. It was a very exciting and memorable day and Disney did a great job of educating and entertaining and helping add to the excitement and fun!

(We did find out later from the retired pilot that the ship did hit the sides of the lock 2 times. A friend of ours said that she saw them painting the sides of the ship to fix up the scratches when we were in Cartagena.)

 

[TheDisneyGirl02]

Thank you so much for the update! I love reading your reports! I get on the Magic one month from today and I can't wait!!!

 

[JOANNEL]

Please say hi to Toto. Tell hom the big group from Florida with all the boys said hi. He put his tables together so all 16 of us could sit together.