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

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

I love sea days too! Those activities look great. Yum Palo brunch. Stolen bread! Love the Trivia I go alone to learn the American facts you are right though never know the answers!

I saw on youtube on one cruise a 'diaper dash' where they raced babies this looked so much fun and so cute! I will look out for that next time.

Great re taste pairings. Like Alison says shame about chocolate one. But then we did Palo brunch and Palo dinner on same day and I only regretted it for not having ever tried Palo before!

My Granny said...only regret the things you have not done never things you have!

It really is a wonderful line up of activities. Nice to start the day with the mile walk it helps I think keeping your eye on that horizon for your sea legs!

 

[dolphingirl47]

I love the Sea Days! Much more than the Port days. I don't think I could limit myself to one activity. Too bad that the chocolate tasting always seems to conflict with Palo Brunch. We did both anyways and sort of regretted it.

Sort of.

What is the price of the Palo Brunch now?

Well, I should be in luck this time round. On the Eastbound Panama Canal Cruise last year they offered the chocolate tasting twice and we only have one Palo Brunch. So even if they overlap again, I should be able to do the second one. Palo Brunch is now $25 per person.

I love sea days too! Those activities look great. Yum Palo brunch. Stolen bread! Love the Trivia I go alone to learn the American facts you are right though never know the answers!

I saw on youtube on one cruise a 'diaper dash' where they raced babies this looked so much fun and so cute! I will look out for that next time.

Great re taste pairings. Like Alison says shame about chocolate one. But then we did Palo brunch and Palo dinner on same day and I only regretted it for not having ever tried Palo before!

My Granny said...only regret the things you have not done never things you have!

It really is a wonderful line up of activities. Nice to start the day with the mile walk it helps I think keeping your eye on that horizon for your sea legs!

Graham watched the Diaper Dash on our last cruise and thought it was a hoot. Fortunately I have never had issues with gaining my sea legs. Being back on land after a cruise is another issue.

Corinna

 

[PrincessInOz]

Sea days sound like a lot of fun. Champagne and tiara's? Can't wait to see you all dressed up with the tiara.

 

[Pinkocto]

Oh how I love sea days! How do the scavenger hunts work? I would think people not playing might end up moving or messing with clues not knowing what they are.

It worked out perfectly to get your info. I happened to see Peter in the hallway already talking with some other guests after a show so I jumped in right after they left. He knew exactly without a moments hesitation.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Sea days sound like a lot of fun. Champagne and tiara's? Can't wait to see you all dressed up with the tiara.

I tend to wear a tiara for formal night as well. I actually have to find my favourite tiara. Graham has tidied the box that it is in away somewhere and I have no idea at present were it is.

Oh how I love sea days! How do the scavenger hunts work? I would think people not playing might end up moving or messing with clues not knowing what they are.

It worked out perfectly to get your info. I happened to see Peter in the hallway already talking with some other guests after a show so I jumped in right after they left. He knew exactly without a moments hesitation.

Peter has grown on my over the years. The first cruise we had him, I was not too keen, but he is actually a really nice guy. Which captain did you have?

We will have two different kinds of scavenger hunts. One will be a photo scavenger hunt and the other will be the type where we have to find stuff and bring it back.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

Our cruise documents have arrived today. This makes everything feel so much more real.

Corinna

 

[Pinkocto]

Peter has grown on my over the years. The first cruise we had him, I was not too keen, but he is actually a really nice guy. Which captain did you have?

We will have two different kinds of scavenger hunts. One will be a photo scavenger hunt and the other will be the type where we have to find stuff and bring it back.

Corinna

We also had Captain Fabian. He was very nice and quite personable. I managed not to miss the captain signing this time around and he autographed my journal. Peter is going on vacation which is the reason Jimmy is taking his place.

The scavenger hunts sound like a lot of fun. I hope they bring the enchanted artwork to the Magic and Wonder, I think you'd really enjoy that.

Our cruise documents have arrived today. This makes everything feel so much more real.

Corinna

 

[PrincessInOz]

YAY for Cruise documents!

 

[tiggrbaby]

Our cruise documents have arrived today. This makes everything feel so much more real.

Corinna

Woo hoo!

 

[Wonder93]

Hi Corinna,

I have just joined this site today and wanted to say that I have enjoyed reading your trip reports very much, and thank you for the information like hotels and places to visit...
We are doing the WBTA this year in September and really looking forward to a longer cruise, we have done 7 days on the Fantasy before but not 2 weeks.

We are booked to do the Panama canal next year in May, the itinerary is the same but for the stop in Key West which I am a bit disappointed with, as we have never been there before and really wanted to visit, but on the other hand it gives us an extra day in San Diego, I don't really enjoy getting out of the ship and fly back home the same day as it is such a long wait in the airport normally and so sad to get off the ship :sad
Thank you for the information about the park in Cozumel, I think we will visit it next year as it looks gorgeous there and I am looking for a relaxing day.

Glad that you got your cruise documents today, it is so exciting, isn't it? when you get the little booklet, love it

 

[dolphingirl47]

We also had Captain Fabian. He was very nice and quite personable. I managed not to miss the captain signing this time around and he autographed my journal. Peter is going on vacation which is the reason Jimmy is taking his place.

The scavenger hunts sound like a lot of fun. I hope they bring the enchanted artwork to the Magic and Wonder, I think you'd really enjoy that.

We had Captain Fabian on our Hawaii cruise and he quickly became our favourite Captain. We had Jimmy twice now as our cruise director and I am delighted to get to do a longer cruise with him. He was our cruise director for the Los Angeles to Vancouver cruise last year. We then met him again on our cruise in December on the Magic and I was really surprised that he recognized us as we normally don't get involved in a lot of the entertainment.

I was kind of hoping that they would add the enchanted artwork to the Magic when she was in dry dock. That is the one thing on the new ships that I would love to experience.

YAY for Cruise documents!

Woo hoo!

I am still really excited about those.

Hi Corinna,

I have just joined this site today and wanted to say that I have enjoyed reading your trip reports very much, and thank you for the information like hotels and places to visit...
We are doing the WBTA this year in September and really looking forward to a longer cruise, we have done 7 days on the Fantasy before but not 2 weeks.

We are booked to do the Panama canal next year in May, the itinerary is the same but for the stop in Key West which I am a bit disappointed with, as we have never been there before and really wanted to visit, but on the other hand it gives us an extra day in San Diego, I don't really enjoy getting out of the ship and fly back home the same day as it is such a long wait in the airport normally and so sad to get off the ship :sad
Thank you for the information about the park in Cozumel, I think we will visit it next year as it looks gorgeous there and I am looking for a relaxing day.

Glad that you got your cruise documents today, it is so exciting, isn't it? when you get the little booklet, love it

Welcome on board. This will be our 4th cruise that is two weeks or longer. It does kind of spoil you for the shorter cruises. Last year we did a back to back cruise as 7 days are no longer enough. A Panama Canal cruise is amazing. This will be number two for us, but the itinerary is very different. After our Panama Canal cruise in 2011, we flew straight home and I did not like this one little bit. This time round we will have two days in San Diego before we fly back home. I will do a full trip report when we get back.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

It is Thursday and therefore a scheduled update day. I will post the schedule update a bit later today, but today is the three week mark before we leave so I thought I post a bit of a more general update.

Although I am more organized this time round then I have been on any of my previous cruises, I am starting to get twitchy and the excitement is starting to get the better of me. The funny shift pattern I am working at the moment does not help either. Today is day 5 of 7 days in a row. I then have Sunday off; work Monday and then have three days off. Then I work another 7 days, have three days off and then it is another 3 work days until I go on leave.

There are a few things that are stubbornly refusing to fall into place. I have spent some quality time this morning sending various emails to check that we are on track with certain things.

I ordered some stock dresses from China at the end of February and they are still not here. I have had custom dresses that got here quicker. Right at the beginning of this month, I received a tracking number, but that did not track anything. After I played the tracking game for a week, I contacted the seller and asked about this. I got a reply that they checked with China Post and it should work now. The tracking number is working now, but it turned out that it was not sent until that day. I do wonder when they had actually sent it if I had not chased it. At least they have sent it by EMS, which is normally pretty swift. It is still tracking in China at the moment, but I hope it will be here early next week.

I am waiting on something that I need to make a couple of gifts for my Secret Mickey. My Secret Mickey is not the easiest person to buy for and to make this work I needed to be creative. I hope that I get what I need to make this work in time.

I had to organize something that I had not expected to do. One of the people on our Facebook group offered to do custom lanyards and name tags. This is something that I always loved about the long cruises. Unfortunately she was let down by the company that were supposed to provide them at the 11th hour and we are now only having group name tags and the badge-holders to attach them to lanyards. I was looking if I could find a UK company that could help in the time frame available. I did not have any luck with this, but I found a seller on Ebay that does individual custom lanyards so I ordered a couple for Graham and me. I ordered them two days ago, they shipped yesterday and arrived today. I was very impressed and I love how they have turned out.

Last but not least, the unlimited photo CD for our cruise is now available for pre-order. I need to take care of this at some point. I had a nice surprise as it is $60 cheaper than what I expected. Looks like they now offer a discount if you buy it in advance.

Corinna

 

[Pinkocto]

Good thing you checked on the dresses!

And what a great bonus they're offering a discount on the photo CD.

 

[PrincessInOz]

3 weeks to go? Not long left.

Good on you for checking the dresses and I'm glad that they are finally shipped.

I hope you get your Secret mickey sorted.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

3 weeks! Exciting! I often wonder if you don't chase things up if they would have ever arrived. Well done for being on the ball! I hope they arrive in the next week or so. Give you a chance to review them and marvel over them before packing.

Those lanyards sound great!

Good luck with custom Mickey! There is always one lol..

 

[dolphingirl47]

Good thing you checked on the dresses!

And what a great bonus they're offering a discount on the photo CD.

The dress saga continues. For days now, it is tracking at different sorting offices in the same city. I can type out the tracking number from memory and I am normally useless with numbers.

3 weeks to go? Not long left.

Good on you for checking the dresses and I'm glad that they are finally shipped.

I hope you get your Secret mickey sorted.

No, not long at all. Hence I am getting a little bit worry as there is the 4 day Easter weekend in between as well.

3 weeks! Exciting! I often wonder if you don't chase things up if they would have ever arrived. Well done for being on the ball! I hope they arrive in the next week or so. Give you a chance to review them and marvel over them before packing.

Those lanyards sound great!

Good luck with custom Mickey! There is always one lol..

I will share the lanyards when I post about all the things that I got for the cruise that did not fit in any of the other categories.

Corinna

 

[dolphingirl47]

I have always had a bit of a love hate relationship with Pirate Night. In all the cruises that we have done, I actually managed to attend the Pirates in the Caribbean deck party once and quite frankly this is one hour of my life that I never get back. I just don’t get the deck parties. I don’t bother with the sail away party either or any other deck party for that matter. I loved the fireworks, but not enough to suffer through the deck party beforehand. I am also not too keen on Pirate Night in the dining room. The menu is not as nice as the other menus and it is a bit noisy for our taste on that evening. More often than not, we have opted to eat at Palo on Pirate night and on one occasion we went to Beach Blanket Buffet to have quiet meal even though they still served elements of the Pirates In The Caribbean Menu.

On the flipside, I am a big kid at heart and love to dress up. In the run up to our last cruise, I finally found my perfect Pirate costume after trying ever since our third cruise. We also love to do Pirate Trivia. So far we have won this every time we played even though this is getting ever more difficult. As far as photo opportunities are concerned, Pirate Night is probably my favourite evening of the cruise. There is usually a great selection of characters out in their Pirate costumes and some characters that you normally don’t get to see like Captain Hook and Mr Smee and Captain Jack Sparrow. I am also usually in luck and manage to see my favourite Stitch. Some of my favourite photos were taken on Pirate Night. I was reading the Navigators from the Eastbound Panama Canal Cruise last year and they had an opportunity for a group photo with “The Gang” in Pirate costume. “The Gang” usually refers to Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald, Chip and Dale. Even though I have seen most of them individual in their Pirate costumes, I have never seen Pluto or Donald dressed as Pirates. I would happily stand in line for quite some time for this.

 

[Pinkocto]

Which outfit are you taking this time?

The upcoming cruise I'm following your lead and skipping Pirate dinner in favor of Palo, but I made sure we'll get out in time for the deck party. I think that's so much fun.

 

[Chilly]

Not long now, hope everything arrives in time.

 

[PJB71]

Oh wow I've missed sooooo much but just managed to catchup

OMG Corinna I can't believe how quick your holiday is coming around, you must be getting so excited

I hope all your deliveries arrive this week & look forward to the updates