All Good Things Come To Those That Wait - A Pre-trip Report

[Pinkocto]

I can breath a very cautious sigh of relief. My dresses are now in the UK. They arrived at the Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre yesterday morning. Hopefully I will have them in my hands by the middle of the week.

Corinna

 

[PrincessInOz]

YAY! Hope your dress arrives soon.

 

[jedijill]

I'm so glad the dresses are in the UK now! You'll have them soon.

Jill in CO

 

[dolphingirl47]

Oh I just adore parrots how wonderful! I am just amazed by the stops on your cruise. I had it in my mind there weren't many good stops on the canal cruise. Boy was I wrong. Another bucket list must have!

The ports on that cruise are amazing and of course we have the crossing, too.

Pam I have a monkey phobia lol. I try to get around AK via a different route to avoid the monkeys .... But DW just tries to distract me. But I know they are there....watching....lol

What a shame. I have always loved monkeys.

That's a relief! So glad you'll have your dresses in time.

Well, they still have to make the long trip north. I assume that they won't go through customs clearance until Tuesday because of the holiday weekend, but then they should be on the way.

YAY! Hope your dress arrives soon.

You and me both.

I'm so glad the dresses are in the UK now! You'll have them soon.

Jill in CO

I really hope so.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

Odds and Ends

I have already shared most of the things that I got for the cruise under various headings, but there are a couple of things that don’t fit into any category. I will share those here.

Plate to sign by the characters

You can hand up to two items per stateroom to Guest Services and they will arrange for them to be signed by the characters. On the first couple of cruises, I had pillowcases signed, but I have never dared actually using them. I also had two big Vinylmations signed on two separate cruises and they are now sitting on one of our shelves. This time round I wanted to try something a bit different. I managed to get a white plate with a black Mickey in the middle from the Disney Store and I managed to get some glitter porcelain pens that do not need fixing in the oven from Amazon. I will ask that characters will sign this for me and then I will hang this on the wall when I get back home.



Planning Folder

I usually have quite a few confirmations and other documents when I go on holiday and normally I just put them in a brown envelope. This is not the most practical thing to use as in order to find a specific document; you have to take all of them out of the envelope. Prior to my last trip, I saw a Planning Folder on Facebook and fell in love with this. This was customized to the trip. Not only was it a lot more practical than an envelope, but I also used it to put the Navigators and other papers that I wanted to keep in it and this actually makes a nice souvenir. I will definitely have plenty of Navigators to keep safe this cruise. As the folders are also really inexpensive, I decided to treat myself to another one.





Door Spotter

This has become another tradition. I have not participated in the Fish Extender exchange for the past 4 cruises. However, I could not imagine not having anything hanging from our fish. So I have had a special door spotter made, which is a panel of fabric that has a character on it and is personalized. I have a generic door spotter, but I also had special door spotters made for our Alaska cruise and for our holiday cruise in December. I figured that a special cruise like the Panama Canal cruise does deserve a special door spotter. This will go to our hotel in Miami so I will see the finished article only when I get there, but here is the design for the embroidery that will go on it.



Embarkation Shirts

Ever since I started to get the Photo CDs, I have tried to do something special for the embarkation photo. Usually this takes the shape of a special t-shirt. Unfortunately I do not have an artistic bone in my body and therefore have to rely on the talent and generosity of other people. Fortunately for me, there have always been kind people that are more than willing to help me.

This time round I put a plea for help out. I wanted an embarkation t-shirt that referenced the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal. Lexa, who I know has followed some of my trip reports, did not only come up with one design, but three different once. I was literally spoiled for choice. The other designs have been turned into magnets and we will get to enjoy them every time we come back to our cabin. As to the design that I have chosen for the t-shirt, I love this more every time I look at it.





Group Shirts

A fairly recent addition are the group shirts. Somebody mentioned that they had group shirts on a previous cruise and the idea was born out of this. The whole discussion did not even start until 5 weeks prior to sailing so this is very impressive that this actually happened. They will make a fantastic souvenir.





Lanyards

On all the special cruises that I have done we had custom lanyards. It did not look like there would be any for this cruise. Then somebody offered to take this on. She created some gorgeous name badges and was going to order some custom lanyards. Unfortunately the lanyard aspect fell through. By then the seed had been sown in my mind. I managed to find a seller on Ebay that did single custom lanyards. I jumped on this and I really loved how they have turned out. So now I will have a special lanyard to wear on the cruise and to remember the trip by.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Those are some great 'souvenirs'. I bet you had a lot of fun designing, organising and ordering them.

You're so organised. Love the planning folder and the door spotter.

 

[franandaj]

All those customized items are really cool. I never have the time to put things like that together. Yours are very cute!

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

I think they're the cutest things! Did something happen with monkeys?

yes when I was little a nasty guy had one of those music boxes and a monkey. He use to make the monkey jump onto your shoulder as you past and bite you if you didn't give him money. One day it jumped on my head and pulled my hair. Nasty monkey I was only 5! I had no money to give and Grandma was appalled but too slow to react.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Love the customized items! Very cool. Nice that you can get items signed I like that!

 

[dolphingirl47]

Those are some great 'souvenirs'. I bet you had a lot of fun designing, organising and ordering them.

You're so organised. Love the planning folder and the door spotter.

Yes, it was definitely fun and they make great souvenirs. Today I am wearing a t-shirt that I made for the 2011 Panama Canal Cruise.

I am pretty organised and love when everything falls into place.

All those customized items are really cool. I never have the time to put things like that together. Yours are very cute!

If I am quite honest, I don't really have the time either, but it helps with waiting for a trip and sometimes doing something that is focused on an upcoming trip is the only thing that keeps me sane.

yes when I was little a nasty guy had one of those music boxes and a monkey. He use to make the monkey jump onto your shoulder as you past and bite you if you didn't give him money. One day it jumped on my head and pulled my hair. Nasty monkey I was only 5! I had no money to give and Grandma was appalled but too slow to react.

I am not surprised that you are nervous around monkeys.

Love the customized items! Very cool. Nice that you can get items signed I like that!

It is really nice that they let you hand things to guest services for signing. The things I had signed all worked out great.

Corinna

 

[Chilly]

Everything is coming together nicely. Great idea on the plate.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Everything is coming together nicely. Great idea on the plate.

I thought that was something a bit different.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

This will be our 4th visit to Cabo and I have to admit that this port has a special place in my heart. It is a tender port, which would normally have me running for the hills, but tendering in Cabo has its advantages. The scenery from where the ship is anchored to the marina is really pretty. There are also sea lions in the bay and they tend to follow the boats.

One drawback with Cabo, due to its location, you only ever get half a day there. We have had both scenarios of either not getting there until lunchtime and leaving mid afternoon or getting there at the crack of dawn and leaving again at lunchtime. This time round, it will be crack of dawn job. Still, they recently extended our port time and now we get to stay until 15:30 instead of 13:30. Because of the strange port times, we only ever did an organized excursion once. Other than that, we just did our own thing. This is what we are planning to do this time, too.

On our last visit we chartered a glass bottom boat for an hour. This only cost us $10 for the two of us. During this hour, we went past Seal Rock, Pelican Rock, Lover's Beach and Land's End with its distinctive arch. Our skipper also had brought fish food and at one point was feeding the fish, which meant that we had plenty to see through the glass bottom. Normally they drop you on a beach and then collect you again at a pre-arranged time, but when we did the boat tour, the currents were too strong and it would not have been safe to swim. I hope that this time round it will be better and we get one last swim in the sea. An hour will be plenty for this and this should still give me time to have a look around the craft market at the port. We had a look around there on our first visit to Cabo and I really liked it.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

How lovely re Cabo. That's very good value re glass bottom boat tour. I do enjoy those Sealions wonderful! I hope you manage to get to the market this visit. Those crafts sound very charming. It must be difficult to pace yourself on souvenirs with luggage restrictions on flight home! Although I have to admit we always purchase an extra bag now lol...

 

[PrincessInOz]

That'll be a great update when you do get round to talking about the glass bottom boat ride. Hope you have a great experience.

 

[Pinkocto]

yes when I was little a nasty guy had one of those music boxes and a monkey. He use to make the monkey jump onto your shoulder as you past and bite you if you didn't give him money. One day it jumped on my head and pulled my hair. Nasty monkey I was only 5! I had no money to give and Grandma was appalled but too slow to react.

That is terrible! What a horrible man to teach his monkey to do that

 

[Pinkocto]

Corinna, Cabo looks gorgeous!!! I've seen that rock formation in movies but never knew where it was.

 

[franandaj]

We didn't get off the ship in Cabo due to the tendering. It sounds like a neat port and hope some day to experience it.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

We didn't get off the ship in Cabo due to the tendering. It sounds like a neat port and hope some day to experience it.

I was worried about this. I don't think I could get off at tender ports. So did you just plan to just have fun on the ship instead?

 

[franandaj]

I was worried about this. I don't think I could get off at tender ports. So did you just plan to just have fun on the ship instead?

We ended up spending the day in our room watching a couple Disney Documentaries and a movie. We ordered room service.