CACruisin'
<font color=teal> If she can do this, so can I!<br
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2005
- Messages
- 2,626
We just returned from our first cruise, June 18-25 on the Magic to Mexico. I have learned so much from here, I hope I can give a little bit back. So here is my attempt at a trip report. It is really long, though.
Embarkation:
This unfortunately did not go smoothly and did not start our trip off well. We arrived at the terminal around 12:30. We had a Cat 3 and I had been told to ask for concierge check in. After repeated questioning of various terminal personnel, we were directed to the Castaway Club line. After waiting in line behind about 50 people we were told we were in the wrong line, but after several attempts they did figure out how to get us checked in. They could not tell us any info about when or where for the concierge meeting on board however. We proceeded to boarding, as directed, only to again be misdirected into another non-moving line. Still no one could tell us when and where the concierge meeting was on board. Once on board, (about an hour after we had arrived at port) we waited as directed to get an elevator (we had a stroller) to go to Topsiders for brunch. After waiting for more than 10 minutes for an elevator, we carried the stroller down one flight of stairs to Deck 3 and Parrot Cay. Once there, they again tried to direct us to Topsiders, at which point I had the dont mess with Mommy look and they did let us in to have lunch at Parrot Cay. After lunch, I went to guest services who were able to finally direct me to Sessions for the concierge meeting. At this point, our cruise got a whole lot better! The concierge team was absolutely wonderful. I had booked Palo, a couples massage and flounders time online already. At the meeting, I was able to reschedule our Palo high tea, book additional spa treatments, hairbraiding appointments, reserve bridge tour, galley tour, and margarita & tequila tasting tickets. I was also able to book additional Flounders time and pick up the pager for the kids. Pretty much anything I wanted to do, Caroline and Karina (concierge team) were able to accommodate. Very nice. Having got this all taken care of, I met the rest of the family and we proceeded to our stateroom, 8022. The suite is wonderful and very convenient to the forward elevator and stairs. All of our luggage arrived at this point also. We dropped everything off and proceed up to Deck 9 for our DIS meet at Scoops. It was a lot of fun to finally meet the people we had talked to for so long. I definitely recommend participating in your DIS thread. We had a small, but wonderful, group that we would bump into throughout the week.
Soon it was time for our lifeboat drill. It went quickly and the staff was very good and efficient. We were packed together like sardines and after the day we had already had, my 2 year old was more than cranky and did not want to be held and let everyone around us know it. Sorry to all of our fellow passengers in Drill area D.
The sailaway party and drinks were great fun although we did not actually sailaway until nearly 6 pm (waiting for late passengers apparently). I was finally able to relax and feel like my vacation had begun.
Meals:
We had PLA rotation and main seating. Our wonderful servers were Clive from Jamaica and Gemma from England. Attilla was our head server. All of them did a fantastic job throughout the week and we didnt even get the excellent speech once! This was Gemmas first week back on the ship. There were no positions available at Palo so she was our assistant server. I believe that she will be moving back to Palo this week. The food each night was consistently good and our servers made some wonderful suggestions, as well.
We had breakfast at Lumieres twice and it was great, very relaxing. We also had room service breakfast one day when we had an early excursion and breakfast at Topsiders.
Lunches were typically from Topsiders or poolside from Plutos! All of these were again very good. The chicken strips were very yummy and one day Topsiders had crepes that were excellent.
We had high tea on Sunday, dinner at Palo Wednesday night, and brunch on Friday. All were fabulous. Having done high tea once, however, I don't feel the need to do it again. Our server was Ciao Romano each time and again he made wonderful suggestions including an excellent Italian Sangovese wine selection suggested by Rajib. The chocolate soufflé was even better when taken with bites of Panna Cotta! The stolen bread, sweet pizza, and chicken parmagaina at brunch were as good as people say.
My children and DH had many snacks from Scoops. We ordered room service several times for the cheese platter and milk and cookies, but found we really did not have time to leisurely eat them between various activities and getting ready for dinner.
Never made it to any of the late night buffets next time!
Shows:
The three main stage shows were all superbly done! We all really enjoyed them! The variety shows on Saturday, Monday, and Friday nights were also very funny according to DH, DD11, and DD9. DD2 was not as interested, so I missed these next time!
Pirate night on Tuesday night was excellent and looked to be a lot of fun. We did not stay long after the show since we had had a long day in Puerto Vallarta.
We saw two of the late cabaret shows: Gary Delana & Michael Harrison. Both were very funny! We missed all of the other late night activities though, just too tired next time!
Other shipboard activities:
The Family Magic Quest Scavenger Hunt Monday night was an absolute riot! We highly recommend it!
Only played Bingo once, early in the week, but it was a lot of fun with Dazzler next time Ill play more!
The couples massage was heavenly. I had the ginger salt glow add on which I really liked. Note though that it was very rough and scratchy. DH did not chose this option, and that was good since he would not have liked it.
DH attended several of the Behind the Scenes seminars with the two guys that created Twice Charmed and a couple of the Navigator Series seminars and said they were excellent.
DH and DDs also went to several Family Animation seminars. They learned two different ways to draw Mickey.
Bridge and Galley Tours were also very interesting.
Margarita & tequila tasting was a lot of fun. I never realized that tequila had different tastes!
Pool time at the Mickey Pool and slide. Never made it to the Quiet Cove Pool next time!
Family shuffleboard ping pong were fun activities on port days when it wasnt so crowded.
I saw the Pacifier with DD11 and DD9 Tuesday night fun. We also had a PremEAR of Herbie Fully loaded on our last sea day. DDs went to the 9:30 am show and DH and I went to the 10:45 pm show.
Excursions:
Due to the ages of our children (11, 9, and 2) we chose to do non-Disney excursions.
In Puerto Vallarta we did the zipline canopy tour with Los Veranos. I can highly recommend this group. Sylvie is an ex-Pat and very helpful via email before we left and equally helpful when we met in person. This was an absolute BLAST! Everyone in our DIS group loved it from the youngest to the oldest! We left the terminal building and walked past all of the white taxis to the street where we immediately hailed a yellow taxi ($8 for 2 adults, 2 children, and a toddler). After about a 20 minute taxi ride we arrived at the south Pemex station and the Los Veranos Tours office. After everyone checked in for our 11 am tour we boarded an open air safari bus for the 45 minute drive into the mountains. The bus ride was probably the scariest part of the whole day! 15 people sitting on the right side of the bus (for the great views) with no one to balance out on the left side as we drove up windy roads yikes! When we arrived at the Canopy location we were all outfitted with harnesses, introduced to our guides and given some safety instructions. All of the equipment was in excellent condition,. The guides were all very helpful and spoke at least some English,. We walked up an inclined, but not steep, path for maybe 5 minutes and then climbed a spiral staircase to the first line. Here the safety instructions were given again and we were off! The second line was significantly longer, but even more fun. In all there were 15 lines. Sometimes there would be a short walk between lines. Other times you took off from the other side of the same tree! The longest line was more than 1/4 mile and +450 meters above ground! I dont like heights but was never uncomfortable. I think the adrenaline kept me going! The last line runs right into Panchos Last Resort, a bar and restaurant right on the river. Here you can have your first drink free and then purchase additional eats, if you like. There are also several waterslides into the river and a nice beach area. You can purchase pictures ($9 each?) and/or a DVD($40) of your ride. The DVD is ready in about 30 minutes and well worth it! We have had fun showing it to family since we returned. We all had a great time cooling off in the river after our ride while we waited for the DVD. The water slides at the river were DDs favorite part of our whole cruise! When we were ready we rode the safari bus back into town (this time with a full load.) and easily caught another taxi back to the terminal. We left the ship a little after 10 am and arrived back around 5 pm. Others who took an earlier bus back were back on the ship about 4 pm.
In Mazatlan, we did Randis Happy Horses. This was again an excellent excursion that we highly recommend. Randi is another ex-Pat and has been doing this for 15-17 years. Many in our DIS group did this excursion. After getting off the ship, we took the tram shuttle to the terminal building. We easily found Tony and Randis pink sign and were escorted to a table until everyone arrived. We were then loaded into pickup trucks with benches in the beds 8 to a truck. After a short drive we arrived at the water taxi pier. This also a fishing pier and the early morning catch was being brought in. We saw a 6 foot hammerhead shark on one boat! On the water taxis everyone put on a life vest for the short trip across to Stone Island. This is an interesting enclave solely owned and governed by 30-40 mexican families. Different lifestyle than we are used to, but everyone was very friendly and nice. Next we boarded a tractor pulled hayride-type wagon. First we dropped off all the riders and then the rest of us went on to the beach. The riders were each matched with a horse. All of the animals were clean and well taken care off. DD9 was matched with a 25 year old race horse. She was able to cantor with him along the sand and was in complete heaven! DD11s horse had more of a sedate idea of how the ride should be, but that was also probably a good match for her! DHs horse was very responsive and he was able to ride back and forth between the two girls. All of them had a great ride (about 1.5 hours) along the mango plantation and the beach. DD2 and I went on to Victors restaurant and the beach while the others rode. Victors is literally in/on the sand with an open air kitchen set up. We were able to change in the clean restroom and play in the surf (no jellyfish!) while we left our stuff up on shore at Victors. When the others finished their ride, we had more beach time. The kids body surfed and built sand castles. We had a wonderful lunch of garlic shrimp, breaded shrimp, quesdillas, a couple of sodas and couple of beers for about $34. After lunch Randi set up a couple of pinatas for the kids and then she had bags of Mexican candy for each of them. Interest trivia: Randi said there is an easy way to tell all of the tour guides for official Disney excursions no facial hair! Disney came in and asked for no facial hair. It is a big deal for a Mexican male to shave his mustache apparently! About 2 pm we did the tractor, water taxi, truck, tram rides in reverse and were back on board about 2:30 pm.
After busy days at sea and two busy port days, we had decided to just stay on board in Cabo and enjoy some of the ship activities that we really had not had a chance to do yet. However, shortly after checking DD2 into Flounders, we had a change of plan! We boarded the tender and went into Cabo in search of waverunner rentals. After you get off the tender at the marina there are lots of vendors trying to sell tours, etc. Since we really just wanted to get a wave runner and then go back to the ship, we walked past all of this into town. This was a long, hot walk (20 minutes?) with a cranky DH and cranky DDs. We did finally make it to the beach (directly across from the marina!) where there were tents set up for wave runner rentals. We went with the newest looking tent (and the closest one too!) Vela? I cant remember. We rented two double waverunners for $45 a piece for 40 minutes. The equipment was in good shape and we were given lifevests (they had kid sizes too) and instructions. We then spent the next 40 minutes having the time of our lives! We were told to stay 250 feet from shore, and 400 feet away from the Magic. We could go from the Los Arcos rock formation to the end of the hotel row. We rode everywhere!! We saw lots of crowds at lovers beach, and lots more people over at the mango deck. We bounced around checked it all out! After our ride we elected to take the water taxi back to the marina ($10). This took less than 5 minutes compared to our earlier walk! We took the tender back and retrieved DD2 from Flounders. DH and the older DDs spent the rest of the afternoon on the Mickey Slide while I took DD2 down for a nap and to start packing.
Childrens Activities:
DD2 loved going to play with toys at Flounders. She is used to being with me 24/7 and has not spent much time at all with babysitters so Flounders was a welcome surprise. We were able to get Flounders time 5 of the 7 days. The only drawback was Flounders opening hours are limited and we had to schedule activities around this and DDs nap time also.
DD9 and DD11 did not really participate much in the Lab. They went early on and said the kids were rowdy and rude. They didnt go back much after that. I heard from others later in the week that kids felt the counselors were very strict so maybe the counselors cracked down on the rude/rowdy kids. I dont know since I couldnt convince ours to go back. DDs did enjoy going to movies and shows, doing family things, and of course watching movies in the stateroom 24/7. We did not get as much grown-up time as we had hoped next time!
Weather:
We had expected cold and dreary weather for our sea days, but were very pleasantly surprised! It was sunny every day at sea and warm enough for shorts and swimming. Our last sea day, Friday there was a cold wind on the decks, but it was protected around the pools for the most part.
In PV, the weather was very warm and humid. It did sprinkle some in the late afternoon. It is the beginning of the rainy season, and later cruisers should expect some possible rain we were told by the locals.
Mazatlan and Cabo were sunny and warm, and not so humid. Sometimes Cabo can be windy we were told, but for us it was calm.
Medical Center:
Unfortunately, we got to check out the Medical facilities. DD2 started having a runny nose on Thursday and spiked a fever Thursday night. Since we were going to be away from home for another week, I decided to have the ships doctor check her ears. They were very nice and accommodating. Luckily, there was no one else in the waiting area Friday morning when we went down. I guess we had a pretty healthy ship!
Final Thoughts:
We loved our Disney Cruise! We hope to do another one someday and did rebook onboard. However, we intend to push out the date into 2007/8. In hindsight, I wouldn't cruise with a 2 year old again. Im not sure I want to cruise while DD is still in the napping years even. There was plenty to do with a 2 year old (too much in fact!), but so many times, we would want to do something together, but it would interfere with nap time or bed time. DH and I took turns doing various activities, but didnt get to do much together.
We tried to schedule too many things in the first few days there are just so many fun things to do on board! Next time, I guess we will have to schedule RELAX time!
In spite of the above statement, there were many, many things we did not do at all because we just didn't have time! I never made it to Scoops or the Quiet Cove Pool. We didnt do the Hidden Mickey Challenge. Never made it to most of the evening activities or many afternoon activities. Never made a walk around deck 4 or to the rainforest room. Only had pictures taken with Characters twice. Next time! Next time! Next time!
We brought way too much luggage! We were ok with clothes, but all the other extras really didnt get used. The snacks for the movies and shows we were never hungry. Only drank one of our 4 bottles of wine. Activities & Goodies for the kids went unused. Too many glow necklaces, etc for pirate night. Binoculars never got used. 9 bottles of sunscreen was 6 bottles too many! Lysol spray, Chlorox wipes, and Purell were overkill and DD2 still got a cold. Didnt need clothes pins or extension cords, or nightlights. Phone cards for non-tipped CMs cell phones have sort of eliminated the need for phone cards. Target/Walmart cards are better.
Highlighters, post its, envelopes, suction cup hooks, and $1s did all get used.
It was great trip and would recommend it. I really do want to go again someday when DD is older.
Embarkation:
This unfortunately did not go smoothly and did not start our trip off well. We arrived at the terminal around 12:30. We had a Cat 3 and I had been told to ask for concierge check in. After repeated questioning of various terminal personnel, we were directed to the Castaway Club line. After waiting in line behind about 50 people we were told we were in the wrong line, but after several attempts they did figure out how to get us checked in. They could not tell us any info about when or where for the concierge meeting on board however. We proceeded to boarding, as directed, only to again be misdirected into another non-moving line. Still no one could tell us when and where the concierge meeting was on board. Once on board, (about an hour after we had arrived at port) we waited as directed to get an elevator (we had a stroller) to go to Topsiders for brunch. After waiting for more than 10 minutes for an elevator, we carried the stroller down one flight of stairs to Deck 3 and Parrot Cay. Once there, they again tried to direct us to Topsiders, at which point I had the dont mess with Mommy look and they did let us in to have lunch at Parrot Cay. After lunch, I went to guest services who were able to finally direct me to Sessions for the concierge meeting. At this point, our cruise got a whole lot better! The concierge team was absolutely wonderful. I had booked Palo, a couples massage and flounders time online already. At the meeting, I was able to reschedule our Palo high tea, book additional spa treatments, hairbraiding appointments, reserve bridge tour, galley tour, and margarita & tequila tasting tickets. I was also able to book additional Flounders time and pick up the pager for the kids. Pretty much anything I wanted to do, Caroline and Karina (concierge team) were able to accommodate. Very nice. Having got this all taken care of, I met the rest of the family and we proceeded to our stateroom, 8022. The suite is wonderful and very convenient to the forward elevator and stairs. All of our luggage arrived at this point also. We dropped everything off and proceed up to Deck 9 for our DIS meet at Scoops. It was a lot of fun to finally meet the people we had talked to for so long. I definitely recommend participating in your DIS thread. We had a small, but wonderful, group that we would bump into throughout the week.
Soon it was time for our lifeboat drill. It went quickly and the staff was very good and efficient. We were packed together like sardines and after the day we had already had, my 2 year old was more than cranky and did not want to be held and let everyone around us know it. Sorry to all of our fellow passengers in Drill area D.
The sailaway party and drinks were great fun although we did not actually sailaway until nearly 6 pm (waiting for late passengers apparently). I was finally able to relax and feel like my vacation had begun.
Meals:
We had PLA rotation and main seating. Our wonderful servers were Clive from Jamaica and Gemma from England. Attilla was our head server. All of them did a fantastic job throughout the week and we didnt even get the excellent speech once! This was Gemmas first week back on the ship. There were no positions available at Palo so she was our assistant server. I believe that she will be moving back to Palo this week. The food each night was consistently good and our servers made some wonderful suggestions, as well.
We had breakfast at Lumieres twice and it was great, very relaxing. We also had room service breakfast one day when we had an early excursion and breakfast at Topsiders.
Lunches were typically from Topsiders or poolside from Plutos! All of these were again very good. The chicken strips were very yummy and one day Topsiders had crepes that were excellent.
We had high tea on Sunday, dinner at Palo Wednesday night, and brunch on Friday. All were fabulous. Having done high tea once, however, I don't feel the need to do it again. Our server was Ciao Romano each time and again he made wonderful suggestions including an excellent Italian Sangovese wine selection suggested by Rajib. The chocolate soufflé was even better when taken with bites of Panna Cotta! The stolen bread, sweet pizza, and chicken parmagaina at brunch were as good as people say.
My children and DH had many snacks from Scoops. We ordered room service several times for the cheese platter and milk and cookies, but found we really did not have time to leisurely eat them between various activities and getting ready for dinner.
Never made it to any of the late night buffets next time!
Shows:
The three main stage shows were all superbly done! We all really enjoyed them! The variety shows on Saturday, Monday, and Friday nights were also very funny according to DH, DD11, and DD9. DD2 was not as interested, so I missed these next time!
Pirate night on Tuesday night was excellent and looked to be a lot of fun. We did not stay long after the show since we had had a long day in Puerto Vallarta.
We saw two of the late cabaret shows: Gary Delana & Michael Harrison. Both were very funny! We missed all of the other late night activities though, just too tired next time!
Other shipboard activities:
The Family Magic Quest Scavenger Hunt Monday night was an absolute riot! We highly recommend it!
Only played Bingo once, early in the week, but it was a lot of fun with Dazzler next time Ill play more!
The couples massage was heavenly. I had the ginger salt glow add on which I really liked. Note though that it was very rough and scratchy. DH did not chose this option, and that was good since he would not have liked it.
DH attended several of the Behind the Scenes seminars with the two guys that created Twice Charmed and a couple of the Navigator Series seminars and said they were excellent.
DH and DDs also went to several Family Animation seminars. They learned two different ways to draw Mickey.
Bridge and Galley Tours were also very interesting.
Margarita & tequila tasting was a lot of fun. I never realized that tequila had different tastes!
Pool time at the Mickey Pool and slide. Never made it to the Quiet Cove Pool next time!
Family shuffleboard ping pong were fun activities on port days when it wasnt so crowded.
I saw the Pacifier with DD11 and DD9 Tuesday night fun. We also had a PremEAR of Herbie Fully loaded on our last sea day. DDs went to the 9:30 am show and DH and I went to the 10:45 pm show.
Excursions:
Due to the ages of our children (11, 9, and 2) we chose to do non-Disney excursions.
In Puerto Vallarta we did the zipline canopy tour with Los Veranos. I can highly recommend this group. Sylvie is an ex-Pat and very helpful via email before we left and equally helpful when we met in person. This was an absolute BLAST! Everyone in our DIS group loved it from the youngest to the oldest! We left the terminal building and walked past all of the white taxis to the street where we immediately hailed a yellow taxi ($8 for 2 adults, 2 children, and a toddler). After about a 20 minute taxi ride we arrived at the south Pemex station and the Los Veranos Tours office. After everyone checked in for our 11 am tour we boarded an open air safari bus for the 45 minute drive into the mountains. The bus ride was probably the scariest part of the whole day! 15 people sitting on the right side of the bus (for the great views) with no one to balance out on the left side as we drove up windy roads yikes! When we arrived at the Canopy location we were all outfitted with harnesses, introduced to our guides and given some safety instructions. All of the equipment was in excellent condition,. The guides were all very helpful and spoke at least some English,. We walked up an inclined, but not steep, path for maybe 5 minutes and then climbed a spiral staircase to the first line. Here the safety instructions were given again and we were off! The second line was significantly longer, but even more fun. In all there were 15 lines. Sometimes there would be a short walk between lines. Other times you took off from the other side of the same tree! The longest line was more than 1/4 mile and +450 meters above ground! I dont like heights but was never uncomfortable. I think the adrenaline kept me going! The last line runs right into Panchos Last Resort, a bar and restaurant right on the river. Here you can have your first drink free and then purchase additional eats, if you like. There are also several waterslides into the river and a nice beach area. You can purchase pictures ($9 each?) and/or a DVD($40) of your ride. The DVD is ready in about 30 minutes and well worth it! We have had fun showing it to family since we returned. We all had a great time cooling off in the river after our ride while we waited for the DVD. The water slides at the river were DDs favorite part of our whole cruise! When we were ready we rode the safari bus back into town (this time with a full load.) and easily caught another taxi back to the terminal. We left the ship a little after 10 am and arrived back around 5 pm. Others who took an earlier bus back were back on the ship about 4 pm.
In Mazatlan, we did Randis Happy Horses. This was again an excellent excursion that we highly recommend. Randi is another ex-Pat and has been doing this for 15-17 years. Many in our DIS group did this excursion. After getting off the ship, we took the tram shuttle to the terminal building. We easily found Tony and Randis pink sign and were escorted to a table until everyone arrived. We were then loaded into pickup trucks with benches in the beds 8 to a truck. After a short drive we arrived at the water taxi pier. This also a fishing pier and the early morning catch was being brought in. We saw a 6 foot hammerhead shark on one boat! On the water taxis everyone put on a life vest for the short trip across to Stone Island. This is an interesting enclave solely owned and governed by 30-40 mexican families. Different lifestyle than we are used to, but everyone was very friendly and nice. Next we boarded a tractor pulled hayride-type wagon. First we dropped off all the riders and then the rest of us went on to the beach. The riders were each matched with a horse. All of the animals were clean and well taken care off. DD9 was matched with a 25 year old race horse. She was able to cantor with him along the sand and was in complete heaven! DD11s horse had more of a sedate idea of how the ride should be, but that was also probably a good match for her! DHs horse was very responsive and he was able to ride back and forth between the two girls. All of them had a great ride (about 1.5 hours) along the mango plantation and the beach. DD2 and I went on to Victors restaurant and the beach while the others rode. Victors is literally in/on the sand with an open air kitchen set up. We were able to change in the clean restroom and play in the surf (no jellyfish!) while we left our stuff up on shore at Victors. When the others finished their ride, we had more beach time. The kids body surfed and built sand castles. We had a wonderful lunch of garlic shrimp, breaded shrimp, quesdillas, a couple of sodas and couple of beers for about $34. After lunch Randi set up a couple of pinatas for the kids and then she had bags of Mexican candy for each of them. Interest trivia: Randi said there is an easy way to tell all of the tour guides for official Disney excursions no facial hair! Disney came in and asked for no facial hair. It is a big deal for a Mexican male to shave his mustache apparently! About 2 pm we did the tractor, water taxi, truck, tram rides in reverse and were back on board about 2:30 pm.
After busy days at sea and two busy port days, we had decided to just stay on board in Cabo and enjoy some of the ship activities that we really had not had a chance to do yet. However, shortly after checking DD2 into Flounders, we had a change of plan! We boarded the tender and went into Cabo in search of waverunner rentals. After you get off the tender at the marina there are lots of vendors trying to sell tours, etc. Since we really just wanted to get a wave runner and then go back to the ship, we walked past all of this into town. This was a long, hot walk (20 minutes?) with a cranky DH and cranky DDs. We did finally make it to the beach (directly across from the marina!) where there were tents set up for wave runner rentals. We went with the newest looking tent (and the closest one too!) Vela? I cant remember. We rented two double waverunners for $45 a piece for 40 minutes. The equipment was in good shape and we were given lifevests (they had kid sizes too) and instructions. We then spent the next 40 minutes having the time of our lives! We were told to stay 250 feet from shore, and 400 feet away from the Magic. We could go from the Los Arcos rock formation to the end of the hotel row. We rode everywhere!! We saw lots of crowds at lovers beach, and lots more people over at the mango deck. We bounced around checked it all out! After our ride we elected to take the water taxi back to the marina ($10). This took less than 5 minutes compared to our earlier walk! We took the tender back and retrieved DD2 from Flounders. DH and the older DDs spent the rest of the afternoon on the Mickey Slide while I took DD2 down for a nap and to start packing.
Childrens Activities:
DD2 loved going to play with toys at Flounders. She is used to being with me 24/7 and has not spent much time at all with babysitters so Flounders was a welcome surprise. We were able to get Flounders time 5 of the 7 days. The only drawback was Flounders opening hours are limited and we had to schedule activities around this and DDs nap time also.
DD9 and DD11 did not really participate much in the Lab. They went early on and said the kids were rowdy and rude. They didnt go back much after that. I heard from others later in the week that kids felt the counselors were very strict so maybe the counselors cracked down on the rude/rowdy kids. I dont know since I couldnt convince ours to go back. DDs did enjoy going to movies and shows, doing family things, and of course watching movies in the stateroom 24/7. We did not get as much grown-up time as we had hoped next time!
Weather:
We had expected cold and dreary weather for our sea days, but were very pleasantly surprised! It was sunny every day at sea and warm enough for shorts and swimming. Our last sea day, Friday there was a cold wind on the decks, but it was protected around the pools for the most part.
In PV, the weather was very warm and humid. It did sprinkle some in the late afternoon. It is the beginning of the rainy season, and later cruisers should expect some possible rain we were told by the locals.
Mazatlan and Cabo were sunny and warm, and not so humid. Sometimes Cabo can be windy we were told, but for us it was calm.
Medical Center:
Unfortunately, we got to check out the Medical facilities. DD2 started having a runny nose on Thursday and spiked a fever Thursday night. Since we were going to be away from home for another week, I decided to have the ships doctor check her ears. They were very nice and accommodating. Luckily, there was no one else in the waiting area Friday morning when we went down. I guess we had a pretty healthy ship!
Final Thoughts:
We loved our Disney Cruise! We hope to do another one someday and did rebook onboard. However, we intend to push out the date into 2007/8. In hindsight, I wouldn't cruise with a 2 year old again. Im not sure I want to cruise while DD is still in the napping years even. There was plenty to do with a 2 year old (too much in fact!), but so many times, we would want to do something together, but it would interfere with nap time or bed time. DH and I took turns doing various activities, but didnt get to do much together.
We tried to schedule too many things in the first few days there are just so many fun things to do on board! Next time, I guess we will have to schedule RELAX time!
In spite of the above statement, there were many, many things we did not do at all because we just didn't have time! I never made it to Scoops or the Quiet Cove Pool. We didnt do the Hidden Mickey Challenge. Never made it to most of the evening activities or many afternoon activities. Never made a walk around deck 4 or to the rainforest room. Only had pictures taken with Characters twice. Next time! Next time! Next time!
We brought way too much luggage! We were ok with clothes, but all the other extras really didnt get used. The snacks for the movies and shows we were never hungry. Only drank one of our 4 bottles of wine. Activities & Goodies for the kids went unused. Too many glow necklaces, etc for pirate night. Binoculars never got used. 9 bottles of sunscreen was 6 bottles too many! Lysol spray, Chlorox wipes, and Purell were overkill and DD2 still got a cold. Didnt need clothes pins or extension cords, or nightlights. Phone cards for non-tipped CMs cell phones have sort of eliminated the need for phone cards. Target/Walmart cards are better.
Highlighters, post its, envelopes, suction cup hooks, and $1s did all get used.
It was great trip and would recommend it. I really do want to go again someday when DD is older.
thanks for the compliments and thanks again for watching DD for me. That was wonderful. Of course, that was supposed to be your journal time, too! So, no wonder you haven't had time. You have a wonderful family and we really enjoyed spending time with all of you and the rest of our DIS group.
