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

[Hypermommy]

Okay... I snuck in some time at work and I'm all caught up. Time for more!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

A leash is surely better than losing your child. I think everyone that has a problem with one should be forced to care for a "scary friendly" child like mine or a wandering child like yours. They'd shut up then.

@ "lovingly suggested he get up and help me right away".... that sounds like a conversation we'd have in my house.

That pic on post 31 of the kids sleeping at AP is so precious!!! Oh, and I love the picture of the girls looking out the porthole in their formal gowns. And those boys in their tuxes! Just priceless. What a fine looking family you have!

I got as far as post34 this morning (Cabo San Lucas) but I have to get to work so I'll have to sneak in the rest of it from there. Can't wait!!

Thank's for reading! By the way, I read your trip report and Loved it! You both had me cracking up through the whole thing. I haven't been responding to everyone's comment's because I've been trying to devote every extra minute in my day to writing this Trip report. I will try to get to anyone's questions at the end if needed. I have to head to work now, but I will try to work on the rest of Puerto Vallarta day when I get home. Thanks to all following along!

 

[Hypermommy]

Thanks!!!

Maybe you can explain to me why these muggles we work for don't seem to understand the importance of trip reports? LOL

 

[meegster]

That formal night family portrait in front of the Mickey statue is just wonderful - you all look lovely! What a happy memory!

 

[monicastanner]

Loving your report. Having done the Wonder twice from Florida, it's awesome to see a trip from the "other side". Can't wait for more!!

 

[Happy Elf]

Subbing....I've enjoyed your TR so far and I can't wait for more!

 

[Timon]

Can't wait for the rest of your report Your kids are adorable

I'm worried about the Mickey Pool next year too as my daughter will be 1 month shy of her third birthday and it's a year away so I don't know if she will be potty trained by then or not???? I can't imagine trying to explain to her why she can't go in that nice big pool for an entire week! At least she will now have the Fantasia Splash area just in case

Thanks for sharing your adventures with us!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

Our Catamaran arrived at the small fishing village of Yelapa. The village is set in it's own cove and the scenery was Beautiful. We got off the catamaran on a dock, met by an old woman who lives in the village. Our tour guides gave us the option of following the old woman throgh their village to hike through the jungle to the Cola de Caballo waterfall, or to relax on the beach. We chose to see their village and the waterfall. Their village was old and very poor, but Charming and Beautiful. Electricity just came to their village four years ago. It was eye opening to our children . I think this was a GREAT experience for them and one that they will never forget. We hiked up the hill that their village was set on, admiring their beautiful vegetation, and lush Jungle that surronded their homes. We passed one home with a man about 50 years old who was passed out on his porch covered in flies and a spider crawling on him! He was either drunk or dying. The kids were horrified by this sight. After the long hike up the hill we arrived at the Cabo de Caballo waterfall. It was Beautiful. DH, DS1 and DS2 jumped in the cold waters and swam. DD1 and myself just put our feet in because it was freezing! I bet it was quite refreshing once you got used to it though! It was Extremely Hot and Humid, although our hike was through the shaded jungle! Our Hike back down the hillside to the beach had us going through a stream with water to our knees and kids waist. That was difficult to get through. Once we made it to the beach we climbed over the sand dunes and then we were there. At the beach we found a couple loungers and the kids swam in the ocean. They were having a Blast! DH ordered a Beer and I just wanted to get back on the Catamaran to get back to our ship. I really started to miss DD2 at this point. I was also Hungry and Tired. After about 45 minutes at the beach it was time to get back to our catamaran. We had to board small tender boats that brought us out to our Catamaran that was anchored outside the cove of this village. The sky was becoming quite dark and overcast and the waves were really picking up. The boats were Rocking back and forth in the waves while you had to climb in. It was hard loading the kids in as well. Once back on the Catamaran the Excursion Crew started their entertainment. It was Great. There was an open Bar and they served cake. The music and dancing started and they were great at getting everyone involved with games. It was alot of fun and the kids all got involved with the fun! As we cruised back to Puerto Vallarta it started to rain. It was a warm rain though so we didn't mind much. As we headed back to the Magic the Skies opened up and it started Down Pouring! We were safe though, under the tents, set up as we lined up to get back on our Ship. As the line moved, we passed a little table set up that had a mexican young man painting Tiles!!!! He was painting one of the Magic in Puerto Vallarta. I asked if I could buy it. He said he was painting it for someone else who already bought it. He already sold the other ones he had painted as well. He said he would paint me one next, and that I could pick it up at 8 PM. This was the one souvenier that I really wanted, and planned to buy on this trip!
When we finally got back on board the Magic we headed up to Flounders Nursery to pick up DD2. It was 5 p.m. and ALL of us REALLY MISSED HER! The kids actually RACED down the hall to Flounders to be the first one to see her! When we arrived at Flounders they told us about her GREAT day and said she fell asleep around 3:15 p.m. and had been sleeping ever since. They woke her up and we brought her back to the room. DS1 and DD2 went up to Deck 9 and filled a tray with icecream for everyone at Goofy's Galley to bring back to the room for everyone. We showered and got dressed for the Show. Tonight's show was Los Caporales Festival Folklorico at 6:30 p.m. At the show, EVERYONE except DD2 and myself fell asleep. I guess they were exhausted!! At the end of the show DD2 started to get ancy. DH woke up and took her outside the Theatre for the last 10 minutes. I thought the show was really good and enjoyed the Authentic Mexican Music and Dancing. After the show, we had family pictures done in the lobby with the white background. This is my favorite background that they have on the Magic. Pictures ALWAYS come out GREAT with this one! We also had to get pictures with the characters all dressed up in their Mexican Attire!

After Pictures we headed over to Animator's Palate for dinner. DH remembered it was 8 p.m. so he headed off the Ship to pick up my tile. The kids and I headed to our table to order drinks. DH quickly returned empty handed. He said that once he got outside he realized he was gone. The port officers told him that he had packed it up and left early, quite awhile ago because of the rain. I was dissapointed but what could I do! Dinner tonight was quite good. After dinner we dropped DS1 and DD1 off at the Lab for Flubber Time. We dropped DS2 off at the club as well. We stopped at Shutters to buy Rechargable batteries for my camera and pick up some of our pictures. We then went back to our room to get ready for bed and read our Navigator. In our room, we had an invitation for a Princess Party being held later in the cruise that you had to RSVP to. DH said he was NOT going so we decided, he would do something with the boys and I would take the girls to the party. I was in my Pajamas and DH decided we had to do Laundry. He dropped off 1 load at the laundry room and then came back to the room. DS1 checked himself out of the lab and came back to the room. He and DS1 watched T.V. in the kids stateroom while I lay down with DD2 to get her asleep in our stateroom. He planned to watch T.V. for 20 minutes and then go switch the laundry and pick up the kids at the club/lab. Well DD2 and myself fell asleep quickly. At 1 a.m. the phone rang. It was the kids Club! Apparently DH, and DS1 fell asleep watching T.V. The counseler said "Mam it is 1 a.m. and the kids Club is CLOSED NOW! I immediately apologized, explained everyone fell asleep and said "I thought they were going to page us when they were ready to be picked up." She explained, THEY HAVE PAGED YOU, MULTIPLE TIMES!!!!!!! DH fell asleep in the other stateroom WITH THE PAGER and NEVER WOKE UP! I was so embarrassed! I so nicely, woke up DH and asked him to get the kids! Lets just say I was a little Angry!
Once they arrived back at the statroom DD1 asked if she could have sign out privelages now??????? I told her we would think about it. And I was worried she was not the RESPONSIBLE One? WE then all Crashed into bed and fell asleep!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

 

[sejejoemmiev]

http://

 

[sejejoemmiev]

 

[nikkistevej]

Your family pictures with Chip and Dale and Minnie are funny with your little one looking at them!! The lifestyle portraits look great, those were some of our favorites from our cruise as well- I think we bought all of ours. I can't wait to read the rest!!

 

[rhondamccollough@hot]

The waterfall looked breathtaking!

I would not dare go to sleep and depend on my DH to go get the kids!LOL He can't sit still for 10 minutes without falling asleep!ROFL

 

[Hypermommy]

Excellent trippie and even better pictures!!!!! Sure hope you gave that girl checkout priviledges. Bet she wouldn't fall asleep in the other stateroom with the pager! LOL

 

[DMMarla07860]

love reading this so far

 

[Happy Elf]

Great pictures! Looking forward to more!

 

[sejejoemmiev]

I woke up at 10:30 a.m. on this morning. It was so nice to sleep in. I woke up everyone else around 10:45 a.m. in case they wanted to rush up to Topsiders for breakfast. We decided to order room service for Brunch, to continue our lazy morning in our room! We head up to the Mickey Pool around noon. DD2 was being EXTREMELY DIFFICULT at the pool today. She wanted to swim in ANYTHING BUT the Baby Mickey Ear. We had some Fruit and Ice cream Poolside. Yummy! We head back to our room at 3:00. We got the kids changed for the Nursery and their Clubs. We got them all checked in and then we head to the Spa for the Exotic Rasul at 3:30. We loved this treatment on our last cruise. Although still good, it seemed much shorter this time around. We heard the knock on the door not long after getting started on the routine with the products they provided. This treatment did not provide enough time to relax this time around. I wonder if the Spa has shortened the time of this treatment, or if last time, extra time was allowed?
After our Spa time, we picked up DD2 from the nursery. We met up with DS1 in the halls as he had checked himself out. We went to the stores for some shopping. Then we head to Shutters to pick up some Pictures and move up to the next level in the Picture Package. I got some slack from DH as we are only 5 days into our cruise! After Shutters we head back to our room. It was 6:10 p.m.! YIKES! We changed super Quick for Dinner and our Show. We were not planning on picking up DS2 or DD1 because they had wanted to stay at their Clubs and skip the evening's show. On the way to the Theatre, DH got a page that DD1 "had checked herself out and will meet us back in our room." We had just given DD1 this privelage that morning, after her irresponsible parents forgot to pick her up the night before. DH ran back to the room to meet her and I tried to find seats in the already packed theatre as the show was starting. Tonight's show was The Comedy and Ventriloquism of Ronn Lucas. He was great. I wish DS2 was at the show, as he would have loved it! It was hard getting him out of that Kid's Club though!
DH picked up DD1 and sat Separately from us in the back row. I had saved him seats with us, but he chose not to look for us, as the show had already started. We met up after the show was over outside the Theatre. After the show, DS1 head up to the Sports Deck for Dodgeball Extreme and Wacky Relay's. He was going to check out and meet us at dinner when they were over. DD1, DD2 and I head over to Studio Sea for Who Want's to be a Moseketeer? I went in with the kids to find seats and DH went to the Kid's Club to Drag out DS2 to join us. DD2 fell asleep on my lap as we waited. The show was as fun as we remembered it from our last cruise. Our #'s did not get called though. Tonight's Dinner was at Parrot Cay. It was an okay menu and we enjoyed it enough. It started Raining Tonight and the Ship was ROCKING quite a bit! After dinner, the rain had died down and we decided to change our clothes and head to the Hot Tub for awhile. We had a nice time and the air at night now was quite warm! We went back to our room to get ready for bed. We filled out a room service request for 6 a.m. as our wakeup call. We had an early excursion planned for the morning so we went to bed at 11:30p.m.

 

[sejejoemmiev]

DH decided to set a Mickey wake up call for 5:50 a.m. He did not want to get caught in his underwear by room service! Breakfast was delivered, and we woke up the kids. We got DD2 dressed for a morning to be spent at Flounders and DD1 and DS2 for a morning in the Club/Lab. DH, DS1, and myself had the excursion: Ancient Petroglyphs of Palma Sola planned. Our excursion meet time was for 7:30 a.m. in Diversions. As we were gathering up our things to walk out the door the telephone rang with a message that our excursion was cancelled due to RAIN !! This was EXTREMELY DISSAPOINTING! We were really looking forward to this! We had orginally booked the Acapulco Highlights, Shopping and Cliff Divers for the whole family. We cancelled this excursion back at home due to the negative reviews from DIS 's on the May Repo. DH went to the excursion desk to see if anything else was being offered. The only excursion with openings was the Later timeslot for the Shotover Jet Experience. Of course the tour we cancelled earlier was still on but FULL. We voted a Big NO on the Shotover Jet Boat Ride and cancelled DD2's Nursery reservation. The kids decided they still wanted to go to the Club/Lab. DH and I decided we would go out to Acapulco on our own. The kids said they didn't want to come with us so DH dropped them off. We decided to wait a little while to see if the rain would pass. We did 2 loads of laundry and took a rest. Around 9:45 we borrowed a stroller from Guest Services and took off. That's when I realized my KTTW card was MIA! I tried to remember the last time I saw my KTTW card, and I came up with the locker room at the Spa, the day earlier. We headed up to deck 9 and I went to the front desk at the Spa. I asked if they found a KTTW card that was left in the locker room ? They asked my name and then handed it over. Now why did I not get a call that it was left behind?????? My KTTW card was not the big deal. My License on the other hand was behind my KTTW card on my Laynard. We head ashore around 10:00 a.m. Immediately we were offered a Taxi to the Cliff Divers for $15.00. This confused me. I thought the Cliff Divers were doing a private DCL dive only , because the Magic was leaving port so early. The driver assured me they were diving at 10:30a.m. We took a risk and accepted his offer. What else would we do for the day? We asked the driver if he would be willing to wait for us during the show and then take us for a short 1 hour tour of Acapulco. He agreed and gave us a price of $30.00 +tip.
We thought this was a steal compared to the excursion price we would have paid! He brought us to a Hotel next to where the cliff divers would be diving. He said we could go down stairs to watch the cliff divers for a small sum or get a prime front row spot in the restauraunt for $29.00 which would include two drinks. We got a table with a great view and enjoyed some Pina Colada's and Strawberry Daquiri's. Watching the Cliff Divers was pretty neat. I could never do what they do. After the show we shopped in the hotel gift shops for a little while. I bought DD2 a beautiful mexican dress to wear at tonight's Mexican fiesta on the ship. We then went out to the parking lot and found our driver. I asked him if he could take us to a Cathedral. He brought us to a town square with a church and we got out to look around for a little while. When we went back to the taxi, I asked our driver if he could bring us somewhere that had good views of the Magic in the Bay. He brought us up a steep winding hill to a Hotel with Beautiful views of the Bay and the Magic. We took some pictures and then returned to the taxi. He asked us if we wanted to be brought to the market. We said No, and explained we were nervous to stay out to long because our ship leaves early at 1:00 p.m. He looked really surprised and then dissapointed. I think he realized we would be his only income for the day! We got back to the port area around 11:30. We shopped at the port shopping area until noon and then headed back on the ship.

 

[lborne]

Loving your TR. Thanks for not messing around and posting often. I hate waiting weeks for updates.

 

[sejejoemmiev]

When we got back on the Magic we went to Parrot Cay for Lunch. It was a South of the Border buffet. They had a Fajita Bar set up and it was delicious!
This was my best meal the entire 15 days on board. I don't know if it was because Mexican food is my favorite, but the buffet was good and the Fajita Bar was GREAT! I wish they served Mexican food more often, especially considering we were sailing the Mexican Riveria! After lunch we went out on Deck 4 to watch our departure from Acapulco. It was now pouring and the fog rolled in! The Magic had called two passangers names over the speaker system. The Ships officers were outside with Radio's looking for someone. We obviously had missing passangers but why were they waiting for them so LONG?? I thought we would sail without them. Eventually a Bus full of people pulled up to board the Magic. They were on a DCL Excursion that ran late, so they had to wait for them. It was alot more than two missing people like everyone was thinking. The Magic pulled out late around 1:40 p.m. We watched the rain and scenery for a while (The ocean was FULL of TRASH!!) and then went back to the room to rest for a little while. We looked at the Navigator and decided to take in the Matinee Showing of The Art of the Story at 3 p.m.
During the show, DS1, DS2, and DD1 fell asleep. DD2 stayed awake and enjoyed the show. DH and I on the other hand did not care for this show at all.
After the show, we went back to the room to take a Nap and we ordered room service for a snack. The late afternnoon sun was breaking out so I brought DD1, DD2, and DS2 to the Mickey Pool. DS1 and DH decided to continue their nap and eventually did some laundry as well. On our way to the Mickey Pool, we passed the hair braiding station. DD1 stopped to watch and asked if she could get her hair done. We made an appointment for the following evening. The kids enjoyed the Pool for a couple hours and then we went back to the room to get ready for dinner. Before dinner we decided to take in the Mickey Mania game show at Studio Sea starting at 7:30p.m. This was a cute show. On our way to dinner we stopped to get pictures with Mexican Goofy. Tonight's dinner was at Lumiere's for the Mexicali dinner menu. It was good but not as good as lunch. After dinner, we headed to Deck 9 for Minnie's Fiesta Grande Deck Party. On the way to the party the kids spotted Mexican Donald and Mickey doing pictures. DD2 was asleep but we waited in line anyways. When we arrived at the Deck Party the kids were asked by a cast member if they would like to be a part of the show and dress up in a Mexican Costume? DD1 said yes and the Boys said No. They dressed DD1 up and gave her some maracas to shake on stage. She had fun doing it!
After the Deck Party we went to look at the Buffet. DD1 and DS1 made an icecream sundae, but the line was way too long to even think about anything else. On the way to our room the boat was really ROCKING. DS2 fell on his Mickey Sword giving himself a Big Circle bruise on his throat. He lay on the floor in front of the elevators on deck 9 SCREAMING and CRYING at the TOP of HIS LUNGS!!!!!!! This continued on for about 5 minutes. I felt bad for the kid but I was MORTIFIED! Everyone that passed me gave me the BAD MOMMY! Glance!! I couldn't get him back to the room quick enough. Once back at the room, I calmed him down and then went to bed.