The Marvelous Mexican Riviera - 2/27-3/6 *Updated 3/13* added Day 3 and Day 4

[inmanfamily]

We just returned from our February 27, 2011 cruise on Disney Wonder to the Mexican Riviera. We had such a fantastic time that I thought I would try doing a trip report to share some of the highlights. I have to confess that I am not a writer (that would be DH) so I hope it doesn’t come across too boring. So here we go.


Our family
DH - Will (39)- financier of all the fun
Me- Sarah (37)- love all things Disney
DD – Caitlin (12) – also Disney crazy
DS- Seth (8)- my video game king

A little about us.
Our family lives in Idaho, but we are from Texas. We recently moved to Idaho for a change in climate. My DH is a writer (alas, I cannot talk him into writing this trip report, it would be so much better). I am a stay at home mom and I home school our two children. Caitlin is in 6th grade and loves ballet and tae kwon do. Seth is in 3rd grade and loves tae kwon do, video games, and cub scouts.

This is our first Disney cruise but it is our 7th cruise overall. We have previously been on Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and Carnival. We booked this cruise in August (just 10 days after the kids sail free offer ended ) and I have spent every unoccupied minute planning for it. We have always wanted to do a Disney cruise but getting to Florida is a little bit of a hassle so when we found out they would be on the west coast we decided to go for it.

We decided to drive rather than fly. Our family loves a good road trip and we have never been through Oregon or northern California so we were looking forward to seeing some new country. That is where we begin:

 

[PizzieDuster]

Great start~ Can't wait to read more!

 

[inmanfamily]

Our road trip begins Tues. February 22 at 5:30am in Moyie Springs, Idaho. We woke at 4:30 to find 4 new inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing heavily so we started rushing to get dressed and the final items loaded before the roads got any worse. The roads were quite bad for about 80 miles but we finally got out of the storm and onto dry ground! This storm ended up dumping about 2 feet of snow on our little spot in northern Idaho, I’m glad we got out when we did!

The first day was a long drive to Eugene, OR. My DH has family there and we were staying the first night with them. It was a long drive and the wind tried to blow us off the road several times but we prevailed and arrived in Eugene about 5:30pm. We ate yummy lasagna and enjoyed our visit immensely.

Wednesday morning (Feb. 23) We left Eugene and headed for the Oregon coast. Our plan was to drive down the coast as much as possible all the way to San Pedro. There was a forecast of snow so we wanted to get out before that hit. We headed over to Hwy 101 and headed south. We got our first glimpse of the beautiful Pacific Ocean shortly after:

We drove to Crescent City, CA and stayed at the Hampton Inn. We used Hilton Honors points for almost all of the hotel rooms on this trip. Crescent City is the northern entrance to Redwood National Park and Jedidiah Smith State Park. We were going to explore these parks tomorrow.

Thursday morning (Feb. 24) Off to the Redwoods. I have always wanted to see the Redwoods so this was a great opportunity to do that. We took off and found some great driving tours and some short walking tours. It was beautiful and amazing. The weather was unfortunately cold and rainy but we had our heavy coats with us so we made the best of it. After exploring the redwoods for a few hours we headed back down Hwy 101 towards Ukiah, CA. We spent the night at Travelodge in Ukiah. This room I booked through Hotwire for $59 I think.

Friday morning (Feb. 25) We leave Ukiah and head towards San Francisco. We are headed down the 101 and that will take us across the Golden Gate Bridge. We had a little extra time so we decided to visit the Aquarium on the bay and Pier 39 in San Francisco. The aquarium was nice, but a little small for the price IMO. The pier would have been a great place to spend the day but the weather was not cooperating. It was windy and quite cold. So we ate some lunch at the WipeOut Grill on the pier and jumped in the car headed for our next stop. We stopped that night at the Hilton Garden Inn (on points) in Gilmore, CA. It was nice to get there early and have a little extra time to do some laundry .

Saturday morning (Feb 26) we got up, ate breakfast, and headed out . Today we moved over to Hwy 1 (Pacific Coast Highway). We followed this all the way down to San Pedro. It was a beautiful drive.

We arrived at the Double Tree in San Pedro about 4:30 in the afternoon. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that we could get complimentary parking for the duration of the cruise even though we booked with our Hilton points (we had planned to park at the terminal, but this saved us $84). We were told to set up a shuttle time with the bell captain. My husband went to take care of this while I finalized checking into the room. He discovered that the earliest shuttle is 9:30 and then every 30 minutes thereafter. We were able to get the last spots on the earliest shuttle. We were tired from the long drive so we just ate dinner at the hotel, walked around the marina a bit, had a couple of martinis and went to bed. We were all very excited about tomorrow!!

 

[pnwprincess]

Great pics! What a fantastic family road trip

 

[smb6]

Great start!

 

[DisneyZell]

wow great pics! we are writing TR's side by side...should be fun to compare. keep up the good work!

 

[mom2twokids]

Thank you for your trip report! We leave next week for our Mexican adventure and I really appreciate everyone who shares their stories. Can't wait to see more!

 

[inmanfamily]

Thank you all for the encouragement! I am working on Embarkation Day right now but my internet is running soooo slow! I am having trouble getting the pictures uploaded. Maybe I'll get it posted tonight....

 

[IndianaPrincess]

Another TR to stalk, errr I mean read, from our cruise!

That drive looks BEAUTIFUL!!!

 

[cmwade77]

Awesome start and great pictures. Looking forward to more!

 

[talie]

I love the Jedidiah Smith Redwoods. Driving through those trees always makes me think of Jurassic Park. =)

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Your photos are stunning .... it is my dream to do a road trip in USA one day. I would love to follow in your footsteps but we will do it in the summer as the weather looks a bit unpredictable at this time of year.
Look forward to reading about your cruise

 

[Lissame]

I was so excited to see that the Doubletree's first shuttle is now at 9:30! When I booked they said it was at 10:30, but that was before the first Disney cruise. I'm glad to see they have adjusted. That's one less taxi for us to take!

 

[inmanfamily]

Your photos are stunning .... it is my dream to do a road trip in USA one day. I would love to follow in your footsteps but we will do it in the summer as the weather looks a bit unpredictable at this time of year.
Look forward to reading about your cruise

Thank you. It was a great trip, but I would recommend waiting until later in the year when the weather is a little more predictable.

 

[inmanfamily]

I was so excited to see that the Doubletree's first shuttle is now at 9:30! When I booked they said it was at 10:30, but that was before the first Disney cruise. I'm glad to see they have adjusted. That's one less taxi for us to take!

We were glad to find this out too. They can only take 10 people on one shuttle though so it fills up quickly. I think later in the morning they start running more than one shuttle. We checked in between 4 and 4:30 and there were 4 slots left in the 9:30 shuttle.

 

[Lissame]

We were glad to find this out too. They can only take 10 people on one shuttle though so it fills up quickly. I think later in the morning they start running more than one shuttle. We checked in between 4 and 4:30 and there were 4 slots left in the 9:30 shuttle.

Since our plane arrives at 9 AM on Saturday, I think we're going to be good on that one then!

 

[inmanfamily]

We woke up about 6am. I had heard that you can see the Wonder from the Double Tree when she comes into port. Of course we started staring out our window waiting (I thought we had probably already missed it). About 7:30am we looked out the window and there it was sailing by (apparently it was late coming in).

We ran downstairs and grabbed some breakfast at the Double Tree breakfast buffet. We were scheduled on the 9:30 shuttle to the terminal so we went back up and got all of our things together and went downstairs at 9:15 to wait for the shuttle to depart. We were at the terminal by 9:40am. We gladly handed the luggage over to the porters and they whisked it away into the terminal. We went into the terminal (they checked our cruise documents at the door). We were sent up the escalators where we filled out the medical questionnaire and then were sent to the check in desk. We checked in and our photos were taken, then we were given our KTTW cards. We then went to the security line where we were given our boarding card. We got boarding #3! Through security then the wait begins. I expected to have to wait a while since the ship was late into port. We made sure the kids brought plenty of stuff (toys, ipods, video games) to keep them occupied while we waited. The terminal was very empty at this point but started to fill up about 10:30. There was a place to register your kids for the club, but as soon as they opened the line it became very long. I decided to wait and get my kids signed up when on the ship. I had already filled out all the online registration so all we needed was the mickey band. While we waited Mickey came in for pictures and the line was crazy! Then about the time they called us to board another character came in, not sure who it was.
Thankfully, my kids aren’t all that interested in the characters. They have met most of the characters in the park and don't seem to have the need to see them again. We only took a few pics with the characters on the whole cruise. Some of the lines were crazy long!

They started the boarding process at about 11:45 and within about 10 minutes they were up to boarding number 3 so we were off to the ship.
The kids were so excited when they announced our name and the line of people cheered for us. What a nice touch and a great way to start the cruise.

We went straight to the guest services desk because my daughter really wanted to go to the Disney Friends Tea. Unfortunately, this was not offered on our cruise. While we were there, DH and I went ahead and got tickets for the tastings we wanted to do. Having taken care of that, we went to Parrot Cay for lunch. It was not busy and we were seated immediately. The food was good.

When we are on a cruise we always use the time between lunch and the rooms being open to explore the ship and today was no different. We were off exploring.

About 1:30 we decided to go check on our room (the folks at check-in told us they wouldn’t be ready until 2:00). They weren’t open yet but we were tired of dragging our carry-on around so we sat and waited.

They opened the rooms on deck 8 at about 1:40. Our stateroom was #8588 (Cat 4B). We had booked a 5C Gty so there was a bit of pixie dust there! This would be our very first room with a verandah and DH and I were very excited about it. It did not disappoint. IMO the layout of the room was very good. We really appreciated the split bathroom design. And we enjoyed going out on the balcony in the mornings to drink our coffee.

While we were checking out our room, the luggage arrived. I did a bit of unpacking and the kids and DH watched some classic Disney cartoons on TV. We went and did a little more exploring and then it was time for the drill. I was happy that we didn’t have to wear the big orange lifejackets to the drill. It has actually been that way on the last two cruises we have been on so we weren’t surprised by it.

Wow....I seem to be long winded today....I will continue in the next post.

 

[inmanfamily]

Okay, drill is done. Now to rush up to deck 10 for the sail away party. It was chilly on deck but the party was fun. The kids got streamers to wave around while they danced.

This is DH in full party mode (he loves to sing and dance with the characters can't you tell )

The best part of the party was the countdown and the special horn blast. That was great. Unfortunately we did not sail away at this point. The ship was late to port that morning so we were late leaving. We went back to the room to finish unpacking and about 30 minutes later we felt the engines rumbling and went out on the balcony to discover we were finally on our way. We waved and cheered for all the poor cold souls waving at us from the shore.

And we were off to Mexico!!!!

We attended the 6:15 show, Welcome Aboard and Juggler Bronkar Lee, it was good but not great. Then to the kids club to get the kids all checked in. My DS(8) got his mickey band (these are quite large and bulky and he complained about it frequently). We wanted to talk to them about my DD(12). When we originally booked this trip one of the reasons was because the kids club went to age 12. Then I find our they are opening the Edge. Well, DD tends to hang more with a younger set and she was not sure she was ready for Edge. So we went to speak with the counselors. They said it was no problem, if we were okay with her being able to come and go as she pleased, they would just give her a visitor band and she could come to the Lab anytime she wanted. She could also participate in the Edge activities. If we did not want her to come and go they would put a mickey band on her but then she would be restricted to the Lab and Club. We opted for the visitor status and it worked out great.

Now off to dinner in Parrot Cay. Sorry folks, I did not take food pictures generally by the time I thought about it everything was gone. I know that DH had the mixed grill (he enjoyed everything except the sausage), I had the beef tenderloin (very good), DD had the grouper (she didn’t like the fish but loved the shrimp on top. When she told our waiter this he promptly brought her a plate full of shrimp. I think were going to like this fellow!) DS had mac and cheese (which I think he had every night. He’s not the most adventurous soul). Another thing about dinner tonight, My DS loves his cheese and one of his favorite things about cruising is to order a cheese plate every night for an appetizer. We sat down to Dinner and asked Vijay (our waiter from India who was fantastic) about a cheese plate. He said no problem it just may take a few minutes. Then Witt (our head server from Thailand, also fabulous) came by to check on us and we told him DS would want a cheese plate for dinner every evening. He said he would make it happen. When the cheese plate arrived it was huge, probably about 2 pounds of cheese.

(I lied apparently I did take this one food pic)

We hoped subsequent cheese plates would be smaller in size (they were) but tonight we just took the extra back to the room to nibble on. We had moved out into open sea now and the seas were getting bumpy. I am prone to seasickness (learned the hard way on our first cruise) so I always take meds before we board and everyday thereafter. The kids generally feel pretty good but were feeling a little queasy this evening. We all decided bed was the best choice and turned in for the night.

 

[inmanfamily]

Since our plane arrives at 9 AM on Saturday, I think we're going to be good on that one then!

Great! You should have no problem then. Just sign up at the bell desk outside the front door.

 

[QuiltTeddy]

Great report so far. I can't wait to read more. We leave 3 weeks from Saturday.