greensombrero
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2019
- Messages
- 342
Day 3 Cabo San Lucas (10/3)
Oh what a beautiful morning! Started the day with a quick walk on deck 4.
We had considered trying to catch a sit down breakfast before our port adventure but realized it would be cutting it a bit close and everyone was hungry and ready before the sit down options opened so it was back to Cabanas which was fine because there were some beautiful views from the back of the ship.
Cabo is a tender port and it was fun to watch them gather from our verandah.
So the rule for our sailing was that if you were fully vaccinated you could leave the ship on your own but if you had kids under 12 then you had to go on a Disney Port Adventure. We were fine with that. The prices were decent and there were options that worked for our kids ages. Having our youngest be 6 definitely helped, options for younger kids were more limited.
We booked the Chileno Bay Snorkeling adventure. We had our kids practice snorkeling in our neighborhood pool a lot but we really haven't had quite the snorkeling opportunities we hoped yet. Castaway Cay on our first cruise proved to be a bit difficult because it is quite the distance out to see anything. We hoped this would provide a better snorkeling experience for them and it did!
Like most Disney Port Adventures first thing is you meet somewhere like the Walt Disney Theater. There they informed us of the new safety protocols. They are trying to create a "bubble" with just people from our cruise and qualified vendors. That means if you wonder away from the group you will not be allowed to board the ship. They made that very clear. Adults who wanted to maybe go shopping on their own would have to fully return to the ship with the group, check in, and then tender back over. This was a bit disappointing for me because I did want to do a bit of shopping after the excursion. I knew my kids would not be able to but I had hoped I could just wait for a later tender and go off on my own while my wife took the kids back. That wouldn't work though I had to fully return to the ship and then ride back over to prove I preserved the bubble which ended up being fine.
Back to our port adventure though. We took a tender boat to the marina where they walked us to our catamaran.
Masks were required on the tender boats and walking to our catamaran but once we set sail we were able to remove them though the crew kept them on the whole time except when they went in the water with us. This port adventure was aboard the yellow catamaran the TropiCat which turned out to be a great boat with a great crew! They took us to see some of the famous sights like lovers beach and the arch.
They had a photographer onboard to take our picture and I think it cost like 15-20 for just one. They normally take more pictures of you throughout the excursion but they only got one of us. We didn't mind we really only wanted the one by the arch and thought the price was reasonable for an excursion photo.
Then we sailed like 45 minutes to a cove to do some snorkeling. On the way there they offered complimentary soft drinks and juice or water. They were also passing out snorkel equipment. We brought our own tubes and masks so the kids would be familiar with them but used their fins since fins take lots of luggage space.
I will warn and maybe you can see it in the above photo but it was a small vessel and it got a bit rough, my oldest got a bit seasick on the ride over. It is interesting because I have to wear sea bands on a cruise ship but I've never had problems on small boats and didn't this time either. I think the fresh air and seeing the horizon always helps me.
We sat upfront where they have the webbed open deck area you could see in my first picture. My oldest started feeling sick and was just staring down at the water through the webbing and I warned her that would not help her seasickness she need to look out at the horizon and breath the fresh air. She refused to listen to me and put her head down and just stared down. Of course it only got worse until she had to make a visit to the side of the ship. After that she informed me that it was much better to look out and it was a dumb move. I'm glad she is learning the hard way to listen to Dad when the stakes aren't real high. Hopefully she'll trust me now when they are. After that she was fine for the rest of the trip.
We did get some great shots of the Wonder as we left the Cabo area. She really is a beautiful ship!
When we got to the cove we'd snorkel in we had a couple options. Everyone I think 15 and under had to wear a life preserver. For everyone else they could chose that or a pool noodle. Because of Covid they didn't use the inflatable snorkel vests. I'm comfortable swimming in open water and opted for a pool noodle. It worked better than I expected! They had a slide off the back of the ship or you could jump in. I just jumped in to get in ahead of my family and be available to assist my kids. The line for the slide was long though so it took a while for them to get off.
They had one guide in a kayak to assist and another swimming with us. We swam over to a little reef area by some rocks to find the best fish. We have an underwater camera we brought with us to take pictures but it acted up and wouldn't work saying there was a memory card issue so I don't have any photos of the snorkeling.
I have snorkeled a few times in my life in Mexico, Costa Rica and Hawaii but I know I haven't been to any super cool snorkeling. This I thought was a great place for my kids to really experience it. There were a lot of fish, at times I felt like rush hour swimming through a school of fish that were so close I thought they'd hit me (they didn't). There were both small fish and decent size ones and a fair number of colors and different varieties. The reef wasn't anything super impressive but it was cool. I suspect more experienced snorkelers probably would have just said it was okay but for us it was great! It really gave my kids the experience I wanted them to have and they were fine in the water. My youngest got a bit nervous and wanted to stay right with mom the whole time but that was fine. One advantage to bring our own equipment was our tubes looked different making it much easier to keep track of everyone in the water as we swam. We swam away from the catamaran but it wasn't as long of a swim as we experienced at Castaway Cay. We were probably in the water for I think maybe 45 minutes before they called us back to the boat.
The ride back was a bit more of a party atmosphere. They offered complimentary soft drinks, juice, water and now an open bar as well as packaged snacks. I wonder if they would have done more of a buffet pre-covid but my kids thought it was cool to try all sorts of Mexican chips, cookies, snack bars etc. They had a decent assortment of snacks you could try. They played music and encouraged some dancing, of course they did the Macarena.
When we got back we walked right to the tenders to head back to the ship. I ran quickly to our room but then grabbed a tender back as my wife really wanted me to go in search of Mexican vanilla and we didn't have too much time. I think we were back right around 1:30 and all aboard was like 3:30. We had some advice from our cruise FB group on brands and what to look for to find good quality vanilla. It wasn't hard to find what we wanted right near the port and for a good price too. I browsed another store and bought a couple other things. I do speak Spanish and talking to a store owner they were telling me how hard things have been. It doesn't help that the Wonder doesn't have too many people shopping given the rules for port adventures. I know it is always a sales tactic but right now I know tourism has really taken a hit so I probably bought a few extra souvenirs for Christmas gifts to help them out a bit. It is amazing to realize just how much this pandemic has affected people all over the world. I'm really grateful for the opportunities we've been blessed with to travel a bit and try to contribute to tourism driven economies.
Not sure if it was on the way there or back but my tender went around the back of the ship giving me a chance to see Donald up close.
By the time I was back I was super hungry and headed up to get some shawarma, pizza and ice cream. Today they had strawberry and blueberry ice cream. I have to say DCL's blueberry soft serve is the best! I was so glad they offered it the next day too, seriously good stuff!
I need to end here for tonight. Our Cabo day was Pirate Night and they actually had a number of pirate themed activities for us to do but more on that in the next post.
Oh what a beautiful morning! Started the day with a quick walk on deck 4.
We had considered trying to catch a sit down breakfast before our port adventure but realized it would be cutting it a bit close and everyone was hungry and ready before the sit down options opened so it was back to Cabanas which was fine because there were some beautiful views from the back of the ship.
Cabo is a tender port and it was fun to watch them gather from our verandah.
So the rule for our sailing was that if you were fully vaccinated you could leave the ship on your own but if you had kids under 12 then you had to go on a Disney Port Adventure. We were fine with that. The prices were decent and there were options that worked for our kids ages. Having our youngest be 6 definitely helped, options for younger kids were more limited.
We booked the Chileno Bay Snorkeling adventure. We had our kids practice snorkeling in our neighborhood pool a lot but we really haven't had quite the snorkeling opportunities we hoped yet. Castaway Cay on our first cruise proved to be a bit difficult because it is quite the distance out to see anything. We hoped this would provide a better snorkeling experience for them and it did!
Like most Disney Port Adventures first thing is you meet somewhere like the Walt Disney Theater. There they informed us of the new safety protocols. They are trying to create a "bubble" with just people from our cruise and qualified vendors. That means if you wonder away from the group you will not be allowed to board the ship. They made that very clear. Adults who wanted to maybe go shopping on their own would have to fully return to the ship with the group, check in, and then tender back over. This was a bit disappointing for me because I did want to do a bit of shopping after the excursion. I knew my kids would not be able to but I had hoped I could just wait for a later tender and go off on my own while my wife took the kids back. That wouldn't work though I had to fully return to the ship and then ride back over to prove I preserved the bubble which ended up being fine.
Back to our port adventure though. We took a tender boat to the marina where they walked us to our catamaran.
Masks were required on the tender boats and walking to our catamaran but once we set sail we were able to remove them though the crew kept them on the whole time except when they went in the water with us. This port adventure was aboard the yellow catamaran the TropiCat which turned out to be a great boat with a great crew! They took us to see some of the famous sights like lovers beach and the arch.
They had a photographer onboard to take our picture and I think it cost like 15-20 for just one. They normally take more pictures of you throughout the excursion but they only got one of us. We didn't mind we really only wanted the one by the arch and thought the price was reasonable for an excursion photo.
Then we sailed like 45 minutes to a cove to do some snorkeling. On the way there they offered complimentary soft drinks and juice or water. They were also passing out snorkel equipment. We brought our own tubes and masks so the kids would be familiar with them but used their fins since fins take lots of luggage space.
I will warn and maybe you can see it in the above photo but it was a small vessel and it got a bit rough, my oldest got a bit seasick on the ride over. It is interesting because I have to wear sea bands on a cruise ship but I've never had problems on small boats and didn't this time either. I think the fresh air and seeing the horizon always helps me.
We sat upfront where they have the webbed open deck area you could see in my first picture. My oldest started feeling sick and was just staring down at the water through the webbing and I warned her that would not help her seasickness she need to look out at the horizon and breath the fresh air. She refused to listen to me and put her head down and just stared down. Of course it only got worse until she had to make a visit to the side of the ship. After that she informed me that it was much better to look out and it was a dumb move. I'm glad she is learning the hard way to listen to Dad when the stakes aren't real high. Hopefully she'll trust me now when they are. After that she was fine for the rest of the trip.
We did get some great shots of the Wonder as we left the Cabo area. She really is a beautiful ship!
When we got to the cove we'd snorkel in we had a couple options. Everyone I think 15 and under had to wear a life preserver. For everyone else they could chose that or a pool noodle. Because of Covid they didn't use the inflatable snorkel vests. I'm comfortable swimming in open water and opted for a pool noodle. It worked better than I expected! They had a slide off the back of the ship or you could jump in. I just jumped in to get in ahead of my family and be available to assist my kids. The line for the slide was long though so it took a while for them to get off.
They had one guide in a kayak to assist and another swimming with us. We swam over to a little reef area by some rocks to find the best fish. We have an underwater camera we brought with us to take pictures but it acted up and wouldn't work saying there was a memory card issue so I don't have any photos of the snorkeling.
I have snorkeled a few times in my life in Mexico, Costa Rica and Hawaii but I know I haven't been to any super cool snorkeling. This I thought was a great place for my kids to really experience it. There were a lot of fish, at times I felt like rush hour swimming through a school of fish that were so close I thought they'd hit me (they didn't). There were both small fish and decent size ones and a fair number of colors and different varieties. The reef wasn't anything super impressive but it was cool. I suspect more experienced snorkelers probably would have just said it was okay but for us it was great! It really gave my kids the experience I wanted them to have and they were fine in the water. My youngest got a bit nervous and wanted to stay right with mom the whole time but that was fine. One advantage to bring our own equipment was our tubes looked different making it much easier to keep track of everyone in the water as we swam. We swam away from the catamaran but it wasn't as long of a swim as we experienced at Castaway Cay. We were probably in the water for I think maybe 45 minutes before they called us back to the boat.
The ride back was a bit more of a party atmosphere. They offered complimentary soft drinks, juice, water and now an open bar as well as packaged snacks. I wonder if they would have done more of a buffet pre-covid but my kids thought it was cool to try all sorts of Mexican chips, cookies, snack bars etc. They had a decent assortment of snacks you could try. They played music and encouraged some dancing, of course they did the Macarena.
When we got back we walked right to the tenders to head back to the ship. I ran quickly to our room but then grabbed a tender back as my wife really wanted me to go in search of Mexican vanilla and we didn't have too much time. I think we were back right around 1:30 and all aboard was like 3:30. We had some advice from our cruise FB group on brands and what to look for to find good quality vanilla. It wasn't hard to find what we wanted right near the port and for a good price too. I browsed another store and bought a couple other things. I do speak Spanish and talking to a store owner they were telling me how hard things have been. It doesn't help that the Wonder doesn't have too many people shopping given the rules for port adventures. I know it is always a sales tactic but right now I know tourism has really taken a hit so I probably bought a few extra souvenirs for Christmas gifts to help them out a bit. It is amazing to realize just how much this pandemic has affected people all over the world. I'm really grateful for the opportunities we've been blessed with to travel a bit and try to contribute to tourism driven economies.
Not sure if it was on the way there or back but my tender went around the back of the ship giving me a chance to see Donald up close.
By the time I was back I was super hungry and headed up to get some shawarma, pizza and ice cream. Today they had strawberry and blueberry ice cream. I have to say DCL's blueberry soft serve is the best! I was so glad they offered it the next day too, seriously good stuff!
I need to end here for tonight. Our Cabo day was Pirate Night and they actually had a number of pirate themed activities for us to do but more on that in the next post.
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