A Young Family Cruises Through The Panama Canal 8/17/08 With Pictures!!!!!!!!!!

[Happy Elf]

Neat canal pictures! The family picture is so good!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

 

[islangrl]

Loving your Trip Report! I, too have a family of six, kids are similar ages. I'm planning on our first cruise next summer, and your TR is just what I wanted to read! Thanks for sharing, and hurry with more. I'm going through withdrawls!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

 

[sejejoemmiev]

 

[sejejoemmiev]

This morning, we went to breakfast at Topsiders before our 9:30 a.m. meet time for our Excursion in Rockin' Bar D. Our family was signed up for the Las America Resort Getaway. Disney offered all guests signed up for this excursion, the ability to back out and get their money back because it was raining. Our family decided to go anyways, out of curiosity for this first time ever, Disney Cruise port of call. We did not feel safe to venture out on our own, so we decided to stay with our excursion despite the rain. Our excursion group disembarked the ship to quite the welcome! There were Colombian dancers, music and T.V. media. They were handing out fruit, balloons, and pinwheels to the kids. By the time we disembarked the ship, the rain had stopped but it was still overcast. We boarded our excursion bus and a tour guide narrated our drive through the city. Our bus stopped at the Fort. It was very big. There were masses of Colombian street peddlers who were very persistent and suffocating. They would not take NO for an answer. I felt very unsafe and I could not wait to get back on the bus! After boarding the bus, we made our way to the resort. The resort was beautiful. We were welcomed again by Colombian dancers. The pool area was okay. It was very shaded due to many trees and it was still Overcast and only 70 degrees. The pool was Cold and it was not hot enough to swim yet. The pool had a water slide that was a hit with the kids! There was a bridge over the pool with trees and a colorful Parrot saying "Hola!" The kids got a kick out of that! The sun finally came out and it warmed up to the 80's. We swam and then went down to the beach. The sand was very dark. The water was warm. We could not enjoy the beach due to the peddlers. There was a water trampoline that DS1 and DS2 wanted to try out. It was $2.00 a person. Our DS1 jumped off the water trampoline and hurt his foot. He spent the rest of the day limping and crying about his foot. He refused to go in the pool or eat lunch with us because of his foot. He sat on a lounge chair the rest of the day and pouted. DH an I got two drinks at the pool. It was $23.00 for 1 beer and 1 watered down Pina Colada!!! It was outrageous! We did not have any more drinks after that! Lunch was barely okay. It was buffet style and after getting lunch and sitting down to eat, we saw birds flying down and eating the food. Gross! We unfortunately didn't see this until we were done eating. After lunch, the resort put on a Colombian dancing show that was really good! At the end of our excursion we boarded our bus. We took a short bus tour through the Historic "old" city of Cartagena. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! Of course the battery on my camera was dead at this point! I wish we had spent our day exploring the old city. We only saw it via bus. I would of loved a walking tour!! Our excursion was just Okay. There was not a lot to do. If it had been a little warmer, the pool might have been enough, but we all ended up bored, even the kids. The excursion offerings for those with kids aged 2/3 was not very good though, so we ended up with not many choices on this trip. After our Excursion bus dropped us off at the port, we shopped a little bit. We bought some Colombian coffee to take back home as gifts. DH went back on the boat to get batteries for my camera so we could take some pictures of the Magic in port. After taking pictures we boarded the Magic.

After boarding back on the Magic, we went back to our room, checked DD1 into the lab, and then up to deck 9 for some food, Mickey pool and the Hot tub!! We watched us sail away from Cartagena and enjoyed the sunset. We skipped the show, Disney on Broadway, as we were enjoying ourselves so much. I felt bad about missing the show after the fact though, as I had heard Sarah Litzsinger (Belle) was Amazing! After the Hot tub and sunset we checked DS2 into the club. We ended up going to our late dinner seating out of guilt only. The menu, Taste of the Caribbean, was HORRIBLE tonight. I ended up only ordering a salad, and I skipped dessert. There was a Mousekeeter show at Animators tonight. After dinner, we went up to deck 9 for the Tropical Fragilistic Expialidocious Deck Party. DD2 and I, had a fun time dancing. After the Deck party we went back to the room. DD1 came back to the room around 11:30, and we checked DS2 out of the club at midnight. We set our clocks ahead 1 hour and then finally, Sleep!

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[sejejoemmiev]

 

[engle]

What!!! What HUGE Disney moment!!! I must know!!! LOVING your TR!!!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

We woke up at 9:45 a.m. to get ready for Behind the Sceneson "Ducky" Williams at 11:00a.m. in the Walt Disney Theatre. Our family really enjoyed hearing Don's story, while watching him draw many Disney characters. Sadly we did not win one! DD1 had her heart set on winning the Tinkerbell drawing.
After Don "Ducky" Williams, we went to Shutters, to look for our pictures from Panama Canal Day, and purchase our favorites. After purchasing our photos, we went to lunch at Parrot Cay for their Asian menu. It was really good. After lunch we went to the pool. DD1 and I left the pool at 3:00 to go to Family Animation at Animator's Palate, to learn how to draw Mickey Mouse with Ducky. DD1 got Don "Ducky" Williams autograph, on the Mickey Mouse she drew, after it ended. After Family Animation, we went back to the pool until about 5:15p.m. DH checked DS2 into the club at 4pm. At 5:15 pm we left the pool to shower and get ready for our show and dinner. We went to see Darren Romeo the voice of Magic at 6:15 p.m. It was a FULL HOUSE tonight! After the show, we brought DS1, DD1 and DD2, to see Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer at 7:30pm. DH an I had to leave at 8:00pm, as we had Palo Reservations. We dropped DD2 off at Flounders, and DS1 and DD1 stayed at Who wants to be a Mouseketeer until the end, and then went off to dinner alone in the dining room. They did not want to go to the clubs tonight. Our servers knew they would be coming to dinner alone tonight and they said they would take care of them. DD1's friend from the next table came over to sit with them and they had a great time having the table to themselves! DH and I had a wonderful dinner in Palo and our server was Awesome and extremely funny! After dinner we went to pick up DD2 at Flounders, and we were greeted with a HUGE Disney moment!!!!! At 10 pm, after our wonderful Palo dinner, DH and I walked into Flounders Nursery to find Snow White rocking DD2 in a rocking chair!! This moment is an example of the difference between a Disney Cruise and any other cruise line. After picking up DD2 at Flounders we went over to the Club to pick up DS2. We walked in to see that they were in the middle of a Finding Nemo puppet show. We stayed to watch with DD2. It was really cute. At the end of the puppet show we found DS2 and he refused to come back to the room with us. He was having way too much fun! We headed over to the lab to pick up DD1 next. She had checked herself into the lab after dinner, while DS1 wanted to watch the Red Sox/Yankees game in our room. DD1 was not ready to come back to the room yet so we left to bring DD2 back to get ready for bed. On the way to the room, we stopped to visit with Max and Goofy in the lobby! We went back to the room to find a Monkey towel animal waiting for us. We picked up DS2 at 11:30 and DD1 checked herself out at 11:45pm. We had a late bedtime with an early morning waiting for us the next day!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

This morning we started our day with room service. The kids ordered Bagels and Donuts. Our Excursion, De Palm Island Getaway, had a meet time of 8:15 am in the Promenade Lounge. We took a bus ride over to the ferry terminal and then a boat ride over to De Palm Island. De Palm Island was Awesome!!! It is an all inclusive island that included a beach, water park, snorkeling, BBQ and open bar!!! This by far, was our favorite day on our whole cruise. The next time we take a non-disney, land based vacation, it will be ARUBA!!!! It was a Hot, Beautiful, Perfect, Sunny day. We arrived at De Palm around 9:30 am and found some chairs at the water park. We first spent some time at this fabulous water park, that was extremely refreshing, on this Hot day. Our whole family had a Blast on the water slides. After spending time at the water park, we went to check out snorkel equipment. After we were all geared up, we went down to the Beautiful Beach to try snorkeling. This was Snorkeling! I didn't have to go past my waist to see baby octopus and massive sea life! There were Bright Blue fish the size of my toddler swimming right by us! It was the best snorkeling ever! You didn't even need to snorkel to see it! The water was Crystal clear. You could just stand in the water and watch the sea life swim by! There was tons of coral too. DD1 got a bloody nose while snorkeling and started freaking out that a Shark was going to come and kill her. She was screaming like a loonatic! DD1 immediately got out of the water after that. The kids then decided they wanted to go back to the water park, so DH took them. I stayed back and snorkeled for about 20 minutes more on my own.
After I finished snorkeling, I went to meet up with my family at the waterpark, but instaed found them eating lunch without me. I took a look at the food, but decided to skip lunch because nothing appealed to me. It looked Gross, but the rest of my family ate without complaining. While they ate I had 3 Rum and fruit punches. They were SO GOOD! DH joined me with the drinks. After lunch we went back to the water park. I had 3 more Rum and Fruit punches. I said they were good! I decided to go snorkel by myself for the last 45 minutes of our excursion. DH and kids met me at the beach and we packed up to leave! This was the only negative of this excursion besides the food. It was too short! We left at 2:00pm! We tried to purchase an extension to our day but we were unable too. We wanted to stay until they closed but no such luck! We were having such a great time we didn't want our day to end! The ferry ride back was enjoyable. We were all in such great spirits from the Fabulous day and probably the Rum punch! Everyone on the Ferry was introducing themselves and talking. It was a nice end to the day. We arrived back at the port at 2:30pm. We checked out the information center to see if we could find a way to go out and snorkel some more but we could not find any options available to us. We went back on the boat and back to the room. DH and DD2 fell asleep. The kids wanted to go to the clubs, so I went to get some lunch on Deck 9. After grabbing some lunch I went back to the room and fell asleep too. Rum Punch? I woke up around 5 pm. DH and I discussed our options for the day. We were trying to decide if we should go into town to go shopping/sightseeing or get showered and dressed for the show. The show tonight was Ally and AJ, platinum selling artists and songwriters. I had never heard of them but my oldest 3 kids sure had! We decided to stay for the show and then skip the dining room to have dinner in Aruba.
We picked the kids up from the clubs to go to the show, DS2 refused to come with us. "Don't pick me up until midnight." The concert was really good. The kids had fun, especially DD1 and DD2. After the show, we disembarked the ship to do some shopping and have dinner. We stopped at the first air-conditioned restaurant we walked by. It was so Hot and humid, that all we cared about was finding air conditioning. The restaurant was dead. We were the only people there. We all ordered fajitas. It was a nice break from the ship's restaurants and food. After dinner, we went back on the ship and hung out in our room until 10:15 when Mickey Mania was starting. After Mickey Mania we stopped at the club to pick up DS2. We couldn't find him for about 20 minutes because he was hiding from us! Then we all went back to the room for some sleep!

 

[arubamama]

I that you ARUBA!!!!
Can't wait to hear more!!!

 

[familyfun5]

it is great to have you back!!!! I enjoy your trip report.

 

[mom4mad]

Loving your trip report!

 

[LiteninPrincessa42]

I am loving this trip report. I have never been on a cruise, but you are making me feel like I am there with you! The pictures are great........I had no idea the ships have such little room to go through the Panama Canal. Looks like you and your family had an incredible time with memories to last a lifetime. Your report makes me want to book my first cruise although I am still debating if doing a Disney Cruise solo would be worth it. Regardless, I've really enjoyed reading this thread, Thank you!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

We slept in this morning, we didn't wake up until 10:30 am!! DD2's tube feeding came apart (again) overnight, and her entire night's feeding was soaked into her blankets, pajamas and sheets. We got our laundry together for the laundry room and then our family headed up to the pool. At 12 0' clock DH and DS1went to Topsiders for lunch. The rest of us stayed at the pool. After they finished lunch, DH and DS1 came back to the pool to pick up DD2, to watch Ariel's new movie. I brought her to see it on Panama Day, but she fell asleep and missed the whole movie! DH stopped to pick up the laundry after the movie. DS2 had lunch poolside, and DD1 joined in with Mouse20 at the Goofy pool. DD1's team won and she got a prize.
At 1:30 pm, DD1, DS2 and I went to stand in line for the Ally and AJ Autograph session in Preludes that would be starting at 2:00. The line that was forming at this time was already very long. We got in line by the lobby/DVC desk on the fourth floor. DH, DS1 and DD2 met us in line after, The Little Mermaid:Ariel's Beginning, ended. DD1 really wanted to buy a CD to be autographed, but we were told they only had 60 CD's to sell, and they started selling them at the front of the line and they were already sold out. We finally got our turn for pictures and autographs at 3:00!!

At 3:30, I had a Hot Stone Massage scheduled in the Spa so DH and I parted ways. While I was in Heaven with my massage, DH went and had our Lithographs signed by Don "Ducky" Williams. When my massage was done, I found my DH and kids waiting for me outside the Spa. DH wanted us to take a look up on Deck 10 to get some pictures of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as we were passing by. When we were finished on Deck 10 we headed down to our rooms to shower and get dressed for Pirate Night. After we put on our Pirate gear we went down to Deck 3 to get the Lifestyle portraits and then pic's with Captain Jack and Pirate Mickey. In order to fit in pictures, we decided to skip the Crew talent show. After pictures, we went to Studio Sea to play A Pirates Life for Me at 7:30. DS1 was picked to be First Mate and DD1 was picked to be part of the crew. Our family had alot of fun watching and then we went to our late dinner seating in AP for our Pirate themed dinner. Our family did not enjoy the menu tonight. We noticed during dinner that Ally and AJ were seated two tables over from us having dinner. It was nice to see nobody was bothering them during dinner. After dinner we headed right up to Deck 9 for the Pirates IN the Caribbean Deck Party and then crashed into bed.

August 30, 2008
A day at Sea

Today was DD2's 3rd Birthday!! We woke up early so we could bring the birthday girl to Playhouse Disney at 9:15 in the Promenade Lounge. DD2 did not sleep well overnight. She was really restless and crying out during sleep. We decided to turn her tube feed off for the night, and give her some Motrin. She slept well after that. The birthday girl was really slow to warm up to Playhouse Disney, but we had just woken her up. Once she started to wake up, she began dancing and having fun. After Playhouse Disney, we went to Parrot Cay for breakfast. DS1 started to not feel well as the boat was really rocking. He complained of motion sickness and a headache so we sent him to the state room to get some Dramamine. DS1 brought back the box of Dramamine to Parrot Cay, but he brought back the tablet form and not the chewable. We decided that DS2 who also suffers from motion sickness in cars at home should probably take some Dramamine too as the boat was rocking, even though he felt fine. DS2 had a hard time trying to swallow the tablet whole, so he started gagging and choking, then vomited all over the table at Parrot Cay. We covered up the vomit with Napkins, apologized to the waitstaff and left to go back to our stateroom. While in our stateroom we got DS2 cleaned up and DS1 decided he wanted to stay in the stateroom to take a nap because he felt terrible. We decided to head up to the store to see if they carried any cold medicine for babies, so DD2 wouldn't have to deal with a runny nose. The store only carried cold medicine for ages 6 and up. While at the store we decided to buy DD2 a little birthday present. They were selling gold by the inch Minnie Mouse chain, so we measured up her wrist for a bracelet. I also found a Mexican Mermaid that I had to have, as I love Mermaids! After shopping in the store, we decided to bring DD2 up to the Mickey pool to swim. On the way into the elevator, DD2 tripped and knocked her head pretty hard. She immediately got an egg size lump on her skull and started screaming. One of the Ship's Captains Crew saw what happened and felt terrible. He offered to meet us at the Mickey Pool with some Ice. A few minutes later he brought us an ice pack. DD2 of course refused to let us use the ice pack on her head. She was acting normally, but the size of the bump on her head made us nervous. DH called down to Health Services to see if we should bring her down, but they were closed until 4:30, so we decided to just let her be and swim. After swimming for a little while DD2 started to get hot and bothered so DH took her inside Topsiders to have lunch in the AC. I stayed with the older kids at the pool. They ended up watching Goofy's Boat Building Championship contest. There were some really good DCL replicas! After bringing DD2 to lunch, DH brought DD2 to bubble time in the club. DD2 asked to go to "school" that afternoon so we checked her into Flounders from 3-4, and decided to go on the galley tour. We thought the tour was boring and claustrophobic. After the galley tour, we picked up DD2 at Flounders and went to play Bingo. We thought some of her birthday luck would rub off on us, and maybe we would win the $28,000 jackpot!! No such luck! We were 79.00 poorer after Bingo. Thinking about the birthday luck now, I don't know what we were thinking, DD2 was having a pretty bad luck day! DD2 slept through the whole Bingo game. After Bingo, DS1 went to the lab to tell DD1 to check herself out so we could get ready for formal night. DH and I went to check DS2 out of the club. Once everyone was back at the room, we showered and got dressed for Formal night. After everyone was ready we headed out for the evening show, Disney Dreams. DD2 loved the Little Mermaid parts. After the show, we went to have formal portraits done as a family and portraits of just DD2 for her 3rd Birthday.
After getting pictures done we went to Parrot Cay for dinner. It was the Captain's Gala Dinner Menu. After dinner, they brought DD2 a chocolate Birthday cake and sang her Happy Birthday! The cake was really good. One of the best desserts I had on board. DD2 only had two bites. After cake, we gave DD2 some presents and then went back to the room. The Captain sent down to our room, a Captain Minnie Mouse stuffed animal for DD2, because he heard she had fell. Disney Magic! At 11pm we went up to the dessert buffet in Lumieres just to see it. The dessert buffet looked really nice but the line was really long! We tried a couple desserts. Although, the presentation of the desserts were beautiful they tasted pretty Blah! We then crashed into bed!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

Our Mickey wake up call woke us up at 7:30. After getting dressed in our beach gear, we headed to Topsiders for breakfast. After breakfast, we disembarked the Magic, and walked to the family beach, stopping for all the obligatory pictures on the way. It was a beautiful, sunny day out. DH stopped to rent some snorkeling equiptment. We found a nice spot on the family beach with some chairs and set up camp. DS1 and myself decided to go snorkeling. DH stayed back with DD1, DD2 and DS2. While DS1 and I were snorkeling, the sky became covered in dark clouds. DS1 struggled in the water and we discovered it was due to his life vest having a small hole so it kept slowly deflating. I decided to bring DS1 back to shore to give DH the deflating vest, so he could get a new one. This is when the life guard decided to close the snorkeling lagoon due to the threat of Lightning! It started raining on our swim back to the beach. We found DH and the other kids near the ocean playground. We sat in the water and played. After about 30 minutes, the showers and clouds cleared, and a Bright, Sunny, Hot day was ours for the rest of the day! They didn't open the snorkeling lagoon again until about 11. DD1 and I had Parasailing booked for 11:30 so we left to walk down to Marges Barges. Once we arrived, we found out our Parasailing was cancelled due to winds out at sea. We were really dissapointed. We walked back to our beach site. DS1 and I decided to try snorkeling again. I never realized how much there was to see!! We saw a small submarine, large submarine, tugboat, treasure chest and minnie mouse! Mickey was missing because he was getting fixed. We saw tons of fish! We saw schools of small fish and a few huge fish too. We didn't see bright colored fish like we did in Aruba, but the snorkeling was much better than our last two trips to Castaway Cay! When we finished snorkeling we headed back to the beach to meet the rest of the family so we could get lunch. DD2 had Two cookie dough icecream cones but refused to eat any lunch. The standouts for lunch were the Banana bread, potato salad, flat bread and of course the cookie dough soft serve icecream! After lunch, DH went snorkeling by himself. DS1 was too tired from the swim back to the beach before lunch as the tide was going out and we had to swim against the current. I dragged a chair into the water and watched the kids play and enjoyed the rest of the day. DH returned from snorkeling and then had to immediately leave with DS1 for their jet ski eco tour at 2:30. DH and DS1 returned from their tour around 3:45. They had a fun time, but they had enjoyed it more the previous year in 2007 when they did it the first time.
DS1 and I decided to do some more snorkeling when they got back. When we had enough, we returned to the beach and lounged on discarded rafts that were all over the beach as it was the end of the day. We soaked up every last possible minute floating on rafts and playing in the ocean and then packed up to leave when there wasn't any time left. We headed back to the ship and went up to deck 9 for icecream and then to deck 10 to watch us sailaway from Castaway Cay and take some pictures of our beautiful view. After we sailed out to sea, we went back down to deck 9 to play in the Mickey pool. We had the pool and slide all to ourselves! The kids had a blast! It was Awesome!

After swimming at the Mickey pool for the last time, we went back to the room to shower and get dressed. The kids went to their clubs so we could pack. We skipped the Club's graduation and the Evening show. The kids still got a graduation T-shirt while at the club that evening. We got most of the packing done before our final dinner in Lumiere's. Our final dinner, The 'till we meet again menu was really good. We said goodbye to our servers and handed out their tip envelopes. After dinner, DS1 and DS2 went back to the clubs, and then we went to Shutters to pick up our final pictures. There were So many pictures to go through, and Shutters was a madhouse, so it took forever to look through the pictures. We had to spread out into the hallway to have space to decide. After we left shutters we went to catch the 'Till we meet again show in the lobby, but we just missed it. We arrived as the confetti was released. We were so dissapointed to miss it. DD1 was really looking forward to it and DD2 would have loved it! We went back to the room to finish packing and get our suitcases in the hall on time. We picked up the boys from the kids clubs and returned our pager. Then we went to sleep for our last night on the Magic! 15 days was not enough!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

Our Magical 15 day cruise had come to an end. We dragged our feet to our last breakfast, not wanting it to end. After disembarking the Magic, DH took the shuttle to the rental car agency to pick up our rental. We waited for him to come retrieve us at the port. Our flight wasn't until the next afternoon, so we decided to spend the day at Sea World as we had never been. Sea World was Hot and extremely busy. We had a good time but we were pretty tired after our cruise, and we were pretty much ready to go home at this point. We made the best of our day there, we just dragged our feet a little bit in the heat. After enjoying a dinner show at Sea World, we left to check into the Nick Hotel. We decided on the Nick Hotel prior to our cruise, because our kids had been begging us to stay there. We woke up and had breakfast in the hotel and then hung at the pool and waterslides for the day. Our flight wasn't until late afternoon so we had plenty of time for the kids to play. We checked out and returned our rental car at the airport.