Ok everyone, sorry for the delay. This cold is one of the worst I have ever had..can't seem to get enough sleep.
So, still hubby and I.
Monday May 23, 2005
Acapulco / Pirate Night
Acapulco day was a bit crazy. We slept in, and then hurried up to topsiders for a quick breakfast. By this time we are really, really tired of the same old buffet breakfast. They really need to get some new ideas here. I know it's breakfast, but a little more variety is needed for the 14 night cruises.
When we exited the ship there was a band playing, and many people dressed in traditional mexican costumes. They all looked great and they were allowing the ships photographers to take the professional portraits so that was even better. You exited through the small port/shopping area building. Come to find out they had the best prices of anything out in town. We were overwhelmed with offers for tours and beggers. Men in blue shirts wanting to direct you adn walk iwth you to the flea market for tips. Of course, we really didn't have a plan for Acapulco day, except to see the cliff divers, so we had a couple hours to kill, so we walked with one of the guys in the blue shirts. What a huge mistake, huge. They directed us through the streets to the flea market, said this is my sisters shop, this is my brothers shop, whatever. I needed to replace a shot glass to a tequila/shot glass set I had bought in cozumel. We found the same type, asked the price, the woman said $14. My hubby said $14 dollars. I said, lets go. She said ok, how much you pay, $12, I said no. Hubby looked at the bottom of the shot glass, there was a $3 price tag on it. He held it up to the lady, she said, no, that not the price. I said lets go. We walked away, she chased us down, the blue shirt relative, said what you looking for, we can help you. We said, no, just looking. We ran into a few other people we had met on the ship, also looking to get the heck out of there. Everything we looked at was way over priced, didn't even come close to being the right price even with negotiating. Told hubby to get me out of there now..and we left, back to port area. We grabbed a cab and headed to La Perla for the cliff diving show. This area was beautiful. We were a bit early, gave us a chance to get some nice photos before the crowds set in for the show. You can watch from many different places. If you booked the excursion, you watch from inside the restaurant through big windows. We were able to purchase great seating for $12 per person, and that was after we had already walked up and down the long steps outside, in the heat..lol, almost dying, thought hubby was going to have to carry me back up the stairs. It was nice to sit down, in the shade on the balcony of the restaurant. We had a great view of the divers, perfect for pics. The $12 per person was totally worth it and that price included two free drinks per person. (Corona, margarita, whatever). I had water, lol, hubby drank my beers..lol. The cliff divers finally came out, climbed down the left side of cliff, swam over, climbed up the right side. The prayed, posed and then finally started diving. Quite a site to see. When they were done, I guess the divers quickly got inside where all people exited, and waited for tips. We were slow to leave so they were posing for picks at the restaurant entrance by the time we exited the restaurant.
We looked around the shops attached to the restaurant, as they were in the recommeded shopping list. Don't even bother, they are so over priced it is terrible. High pressure salesmen following you everywhere. They even waited for hubby to come out of the bathroom, had some jewelry I had looked at in the little pouch ready for him to pay..we said no..we don't want it..lol.
I had had enough, time to catch a cab to Senor Frogs.
That was a crazy thing..lol. We asked for Senor Frogs, confirmed price and away we went. Well, Senor Frogs restaurant is at the other end of the bay, on a hill. Supposedly a great picture spot. The taxi driver dropped us about 1/2 way there at a Senor Frogs tshirt shop..lol. Hubby says, well the restaurant must be upstairs. I said, I don't think there is a restaurant here, we confirmed that with the sales clerk..lol. Good thing was they had great Senor Frogs tshirts, 1/2 price. Anyway, we had a map of the places we wanted to stop. So now..not sure where we were, the map wasn't making a lot of sense. So we grabbed another cab and said Hard Rock Cafe..sure enough, we were still a ways a way from it. Good thing is hard Rock and Planet Hollywood are side by side. So we bought our mdse, looked around and took photos at both and decided time for lunch. We had planned on eating at Carlos and Charlies..so grab another cab and head back there.
The food and Carlos and Charlies did not disappoint. It has a totally different menu than the one in Cozumel (if any of you have visited while doing the 7 night). They also did a mango margarita for me, on the rocks, since I don't do the frozen ones. It was fantastic. This restaurant is on the 2nd floor overlooking the busy streets, so we sat and relaxed, did a lot of people watching. There were some young men acting like hot dogs on motorcycles, racing up and down the roads, doing wheelies, in and out of the busy traffic.
After lunch we headed back to ship. We decided Acapulco was a great expierence, but not a place we would never have or want to visit again.
After downing lots of water we decided to head to the rainforest to relax, before dinner. In the rainforest we talked with another couple and an older woman, none of them were impressed with Acapulco either..lol. On a good note..some other friends we had met on the ship had taken their entire party to the correct Senor Frogs, at the other end of the bay and they said it was excellent. Great views.
Again when we sailed from Acapulco, people lining the shores, Captain Mickey out waving at everyone. The people were definately excited to have the Magic and mickey in town.
So, tonight was pirate night. We had purchased our pirate earrings and eye patches in the MK at WDW before the cruise, we knew we got bandannas for our heads at dinner, and I had found some blinking pirate pins in the oriental trading catalog, so I took those along for our tablemates and servers. We didn't have full costumes (quite a few people did and they looked great), but we looked great and got the cutest pics. The wife of the couple at a table beside us was dressed as the red head. She looked great. The server for that table was not familiar with the POC and the red head..so they were trying to explain to the server. Everyone at our table started banging on the table with our hands, saying, we want the redhead, we want the redhead..lol. The redhead looked at us and started laughing, she said exactly. The server still did not understand. Anyway, the pirates dinner menu is excellent:
Appetizers:
Blackbeards Jumbo Crab Cake
(with a fruit salsa and honey lime tropical coleslaw)
Cannon Smoked Bbq chicken drumsticks
(with onion rings and sweet chili pepper sauce)
The Buccaneer's sun-ripened pineapple
(with a coconut covered banana and orange glaze)
Pearls of the Caribbean
(crabmeat, shrimp and salmon mixed in pearls of couscous with lemon grass infused vinaigrette)
The bread was the Jamaincan Banana bread loaf
Soups and Salads
Chilled to the bone honeydew melon and mango soup
Caribbean style spicy vegetable gumbo soup
Hideaway bay salad
Jerk Chicken Salad
Mr. Smee's Bib lettuce
Main Course
Treasure of the Sea Grilled shrimp and seared scallops
(served on strings of pasta and fresh, creamy tomato sauce)
Jack Sparrows fruit marinated roasted loin of pork
(cooked with orange and pineapple juice served with sweet mashed potatoes, snow peas and baby corn on a fruity pool of grog)
Castaway Cay's chicken breast rubbed with pirate island spice
(with rice and beans and fried okra on a rich spiced glaze)
Captain Hooks coconut crusted oven baked snapper
(with Island fried rice and fire roasted vegetables topped with red pepper and pineapple salsa)
The Black Pearl's Oven roasted Beef Tenderloin
(with sour cream chive smashed potatoes, sugar baked carrots with a deep red wine glaze)
Desserts
Shiver me timbers white chocolate cheesecake
(on a macadamia barnacle bottom)
Floating Island of Tropical Fruit Treasure's
(meringue chest filled with tropical fruit and berries surrounded by a vanilla sauce)
Walk the triple layered chocolate gangplank cake
(and fall into a rich dark chocolate sauce)
The lost Banana Treasure
(found with caramel rum sauce and vanilla ice cream, flambeed by your head server in the dining room)
The Calypso Ice Cream Sundae
(containing rum and raisin ice cream, caribbean cake and a rum caramel sauce)
Our dinner ran late, after we the pirates singing we had to hurry up to deck 10 for the pirates party and fireworks. They do a really good job with that, and then the set up of course for more food..lol. You definately don't go hungry. Our tablemates came back to our cabin to visit for a while, they left and we went to bed. All in all a pretty good day.
Tuesday May 24th, 2005
A day at Sea
I woke up with a horrible headache. We went to grab a bit of breakfast, and I went back to bed. Hubby woke me up at 1pm, said do you want to go to the auction, I said, I will come check it out for a minute. I couldn't last..my head was pounding, I told hubby I was going back to room, left him with the bid card..lol, now you know how bad I felt..lol. I went back to bed and didn't wake up again until 7pm. There was no way I was going to dinner, as bad as I was feeling, so we were going to order room service, although we had pretty much exhausted that menu, we decided why not just pop into topsiders, and bring the food back to the stateroom. Keep in mind, I looked like h*ll, lol. I put a scruncii in my hair and we headed up to topsiders. Told the door host we just wanted to grab dinner and take it back to our stateroom, he said we couldn't do that, china and all, saftey hazard. I said, you got to be kidding, lol. He said, just come on in and sit down, we will serve you very quickly. So we did. Much to our surprise, this is really the way to dine on the ship. We loved it. The menu is almost identical to that being served in the dining room, except you get salad bar instead of all the individual salads offered on the menu. The service was outstanding, and yes it was fast. Where it usually takes us almost two hours in the dining room, we were in and out in a flash, and we were not rushed. I started felling a bit better. The server was asking us about boyz II men, the talent on ship for the evenings show. Well, we had missed the 6:30 show. Another diner said they were fantastic, I looked at hubby and said..wasn't that a group our daughter liked back in her pre-teen years, he said yes. (She confirmed this when we met up with her in CA). Anyway, after dinner, I popped in to catch a couple songs just to see what it was all about, they were good, then back to bed, as I was exhausted. That headache wore me out and we were both looking forward to Mazatlan in the morning.
Wednesday May 25th, 2005
Mazatlan
We were both looking forward to today, as other cruisers told us this was a better port than Acapulco.
We didn't have any excursions planned, however there were a few places we wanted to see. Time to grab a cab..lol. You have to take a little tram type thing over to where you exit the port. This works out great. Again you go through a small shopping type building out to the city. Plenty of drivers were lined up, all types of cabs. I said, well, lets grab a cab, I started walking, as I had my eye on the one I wanted, he was at the end of the line. One of those old square looking volkswagons, with the top cut off, and a canopy for the top. Very popular in Mazatlan and a great way to get around. He had a hot wheels type logo on the rear bumper which caught my eye. Hubby said, where are you going..I said to the cab at the end..he said ok..just checking..lol. The driver was excellent. We told him we wanted to go to the Golden Zone for shopping, we confirmed price and off we went. Not to far down the road he said would you like a tour of Mazatlan, hubby said, how much. Driver said I can take you places the big tour buses can't go, up the hills and narrow streets, hubby again said how much. Driver said $30, we said excellent, lets do it. Wow..what a treat. This turned out to be one of the best bargains ever (although we did give him $60 instead of the $30 he asked for just because he was so great). He took us everywhere, by all the monuments, the famous cathedral, Old town, new town, way up in the hills. Everytime I lifted my camera to take a photo he pulled over so I could get the pics I wanted. He took photos of us whenever I asked. It was totally excellent, and I think he took a good 1 1/2 to two hours with us. He gave us shopping advice, where to go and where not to go. He let us get out of the cab to check things out, and he waited for us the whole time. We spent plenty of time in the beautiful cathedral (this is a must see). He said, ok, now I am going to drop you at this end of the golden zone and you can work your way back. We said perfect as that is what we like to do. For any of you on the west coast cruises..don't book a excursion tour..definately do this on your own. We talked with people on the bus tours..they didn't get to see a lot of the things we did, because of the narrow streets. It was excellent.
Shopping in Mazatlan was also excellent. The first store, where he dropped us had beautiful artwork and craft items..of course that is where we started spending and it didn't stop all day..lol. We had a wonderful lunch at the Panama Restaurant. And great buys on jewelry at Cielito Lindo. We loved this place, and because we made purchases, they gave us a ride back to the ship. They said..just come back at this time and we will take you back for free so you don't have to get cab. We said great. Of course, we were running late, did more shopping on the way back, so we popped in just to see if we were too late. They said no, the shuttle has already left, but we will find someone to take you. The owner himself came out and gave us a ride in his BMW. We thought that was quite nice. We told him mickey usually comes out and waves to everyone as the ship is leaving, he said great, his wife had just called him and wanted to know if they (wife/him and son) were going to all see the Magic together before she leaves port, he said now he would definately have to bring the wife and son.
Of course we had so much fun shopping this was the one and only port I forgot to mail our postcards in..unbelievable.
Well, back to the ship. We relaxed on the balcony for a bit and I wanted to go see Kermit the frog show. Kermit was great, Bob Sagat was horrible. I left when he started talking about his daughters thongs. This guy is, well, ugh is all I can say. I sure hope he isn't the entertainment on the return cruise..lol. Guest services received a lot of complaints about his off colored humor.
Time for dinner, great again and then we went with our tablemates to see Rich Purpura at Rockin Bar D. He was very funny. After that off to bed, as tomorrow was another early day..it was Cabo day..lol.
Thursday May 26th, 2005
Cabo San Lucas
When we woke up, hubby says, we are here already. He said come look, and Los Arcos was right in front of us..so I got great pictures right from our Balcony. We hurried to pack our backpack up, grabbed some breakfast, again at topsiders and head off the ship. Tendering was a breeze, no problem at all. Non of the shops opened until 9am, but we thought we would just walk around the town, check things out. That turned out working out great..as not many people were out and about yet..so we got great photos of us, with no other bodies in the photos..lol.
One hint for you all, if you are tired of the ships breakfast..all the little breakfast spots along the dock as you walk into town are open..so eat in Cabo that morning..you have plenty of time before the stores open and everything smelled delicious. If we had only known..we would have had breakfast off the ship, in Cabo.
Anyway, I had printed a map from the internet of the shopping area so we walked around, found of few of the places we would be coming back to, found Cabo Wabo of course. Then decided..time to head to post office. Well the ships map was a little off, so we went, well, lets just say the long way..lol, to the post office. Finally found it, mailed our post cards and even got stamps in our passports. By then all the shops were open up. We stopped first at a little convenience type place, to get water. Found some adorable small coke bottles, great prices on vanilla and a great selection of tequila. We got the water and decided we would come back later for the heavy stuff..lol. After that, Hard Rock cafe for pins and tshirts. We were checking the tshirt shops for a shirt Bob had seen in mazatlan (they were all sold out of his size there..yes in very shop). We did find it in Cabo. He was happy. Did a bit more shopping and headed back to cabo wabo for lunch. There we ran into another dis board couple. The finished their lunch first..so they waited for us at the rainbow shot bar. Lunch at Cabo Wabo was very good by the way. Anyway, by the time we got downstairs a group of dis'ers had gathered and one of them was about to do the rainbow shots. They line 7 (I think) shotglasses up on the bar and dump an alcohol mixture into them which ends up looking like a rainbow. Great pics and of course hubby had to try it also...lol. The same group decided to head over to gigglin marlin for drinks, also on my map of places to visit..lol, so we went with. Here, the rainbow shot boys decided they would be hung upside down and have shots. This was great also, although I am sure at night with a full bar it is really a riot..lol. After relaxing and visiting for a bit, the rest of the dis'ers went on their way and we hung out with the couple whose hubby was doing shots with mine. Keep in mind..these are very low alcohol shots at both places so no one is getting drunk. We kind of shopped our way back to the ship. We stopped at Slims, the smallest bar in the world. There, if you buy a tshirt, you get a free shot of tequila..lol. Well, we bought the tshirts and gave away the shots of tequila. Doing a little more walking towards the ship, picking up the free jewelry and such from the passporter (shopping book you can purchase on the ship). The other wife was looking for a particular tshirt so she led us on the next path. The two hubbies noticed a tiki type bar and decided one more beer before getting back on the ship. This bar also has sushi and sashimi. We had sat for a bit, the chef brought us out samples..the food was excellent. He said do you want to order, we said, nope, we really need to get back to the ship. We walked back along the dock, there were sea lions playing in the water. We stopped at the tequila booth, never can have enough tequila..lol. Snapped some pictures and in line to tender back to ship. We had a wonderful afternoon with this other couple.
Once back on the ship, we grabbed some water and decided to head up to deck 10 to get a few more pics of cabo as we left..well, we waited and waited but we weren't leaving. Finally the captain made and announcement..we were having some difficulty with the anchor. So back to the cabin to relax. Los Arcos had again come into perfect view, so snapped a few more pics.
Hubby's feet were killing him so he called the spa and went up for a quick foot massage..lol. I went to shutters, picked up photos, etc. Had a few more taken with the characters..lol. Funny how fast you can gather pics for the 30 photo package..lol. I was heading to twice charmed when hubby was coming off the elevator..I said lets go to the new show. The twice charmed show is very, very good. We both enjoyed it, although hubbys favorite is still hercules. It was formal night, so time to shower for dinner. Getting out of shower I got a bloody nose..hubby was already laying on the bed exhausted. He said..just lay down, lets skip dinner and go to sleep early..lol.
That's exactly what we did.
Friday May 27th, 2005
Day at Sea
Ugh, we couldn't believe it the cruise was almost over. We started the day with a couples well being massage. That was very nice. Tony and Jezzica at the spa are great. We picked up all our final pictures at shutters. It was a chilly day, everyone buying jackets and sweatshirts in the gift shops. We knew we needed to get packing. Everytime we bought something we just kept stuffing the bags under the bed, lol. Hubby said we are never going to have room, I said we haven't bought that much..lol. OMG, when it was time to pack..lol. Oh well, thank goodness we had bought a couple of those crazy bags when we were in Mazatlan, we needed them to take souveniers off the ship. Our other bags would be packed tight. We went to cove cafe to get coffee, walked around the ship a bit, and back to packing. We were suppose to have high tea at 3:30pm, decided we needed to keep packing, lol, what a chore. Palo called, said no problem, no charge. I thought that was nice of them. We headed up to get ice cream, ran into the cabo couple. Both hubbys decided to smoke the cigars they got in cabo and finish off the scotch my hubby had brought on board. Ran into a couple other friends who helped polish off the bottle of scotch.
Packing is almost done, time for dinner. We had tips already for everyone, along with some gifts. I hate the final dinners as it is so hard to say goodbye to everyone. We had such wonderful tablemates and servers. Although..a huge percentage of people from this cruise was going exactly the same place we were..lol, Disneyland. We finished dinner, visited with our tablemates and servers a while, took lots of photos and barely made it back to the room to get our luggage out by the cut off time..lol. A wonderful lithograph was on our bed, thank goodness I had packed a tube to roll it up in for travel.
We waited for our stateroom host to come back, as he was the only one we had not given the tip to yet. It was a late night, hubby was tired and was snoring away. I was trying to get all the receipts together for customs, as I knew I had to go down there in the morning, as we were over on alcohol, again..lol. Customs form finally ready, I am now off to bed.
Saturday May 28th, 2005
Port of LA, San Pedro
Well, I couldn't sleep all night, kept waking up. At 5:30, hubby said, we might as well just go up on deck. We weren't the only ones up..lol. The breeze was cool as we were coming in to port. Plenty of sea lions all over the buoys. I think most everyone was in a state of disbelief. The two weeks, 14 full nights were over. As we got closer all the characters come up on deck to join us for the entrance and docking. There were a few people waving and honking. A big blow up type mickey was on top the building.
There were castmembers waving with the big mickey hands to us. We were docked, the coast guard and customs officials boarded the ship. It was time for us to shower and head down to customs. Customs line was long, not slow, just hadn't started yet. It got a very late start. Once it started moving, it went very quickly. We didn't have to pay anything, we were good to go. Back up to the cabin, Goofy and Mickey were heading over to some press tents or something on the other side. We watched them bounce on over..lol. A couple helicopters picked people up in the same area. The fuel barge pulled up. There was an announcement..no smoking we are being refueled..however there were plenty of people smoking on their balconies. Just what are they thinking..ugh. Anyway, time for breakfast. I do have to say..breakfast today was excellent..lol. Hubby told our server he was very hungry..lol, so she brought him two plates, loaded with food. I about died laughing, hubby didn't know what to think. We visited with our tablemates while we waited to be called to leave. We had a car picking us up at 10am. Well, by the time we got to the car it was almost 11am. Ugh, getting off the ship took a bit. Passport people in one line. Birth Certs in the other line. We had passports, luckily, definatley the shorter of the two lines. Got up to the customs agent, answered the questions and off to find our luggage. The port area we exited through had a new coat of paint. Purple/blue combo.
We had 5 very heavy bags, lol, plus our carry off stuff, lol. What a riot. There weren't enough porters, the line for the porters was very long. Hubby started connecting all our luggage together while I waited in line, just in case. He finally got it and we rolled on out of there, without a porter. I said, wait here, I will walk down and look for our car. It would be easy to recognize because the driver will be holding a sign with our name on it. I was just hoping he was still there. Sure enough, there he was, I flagged him down and he found a spot to pull over. Now, getting all our luggage in was another story. He had a lot of stuff in his trunk already. We stuffed everything in, he confirmed where we were going and we were off (with tears in our eyes...why is it so hard to leave this ship). As I heard later, people with transfers had quite a time getting where they needed to go, I am glad we got a car on our own. There was a memorial day parade going on, but our driver had no problem going around it and getting us to the GC hotel. We signed the paperwork, tipped him extra. Bob dealt with the bellperson and the luggage and I went inside to check in. There was already a long line to check in..lol. There was a castmember at the front of the line apologizing, saying we didn't expect you all so early. I just thought ot myself..well, the ship docked early, what time did she think we would all arrive..lol.
Anyway, we had three great nights at DL after that, our daughter met with us, as she is stationed at the air force base out there. We saw plenty of our friends from the ship.
What a wonderful two and a half weeks. I know we did many more things on and off the ship than I have listed in my trip reports, I have the photos to proove it..lol. The cruise ship castmembers did a wonderful job with the schedule keeping everyone busy. I know we were pretty much non-stop busy from the time we woke up until the time we went to bed while on the ship. The food was fantastic, especially the new menus. I think some of the old menus should be replaced with the new. We made a lot of great friends on the ship and I am sure we will see them again on future cruises..lol. The one thing that totally amazed everyone we talked with, is how disney totally underestimated the crowd they would have sailing with them on this 14 night adventure. What a group of disney lovers, who were also repeat cruisers, and how much they would all love this cruise. And we did.
Thanks for reading,
Cheryl
So, still hubby and I.
Monday May 23, 2005
Acapulco / Pirate Night
Acapulco day was a bit crazy. We slept in, and then hurried up to topsiders for a quick breakfast. By this time we are really, really tired of the same old buffet breakfast. They really need to get some new ideas here. I know it's breakfast, but a little more variety is needed for the 14 night cruises.
When we exited the ship there was a band playing, and many people dressed in traditional mexican costumes. They all looked great and they were allowing the ships photographers to take the professional portraits so that was even better. You exited through the small port/shopping area building. Come to find out they had the best prices of anything out in town. We were overwhelmed with offers for tours and beggers. Men in blue shirts wanting to direct you adn walk iwth you to the flea market for tips. Of course, we really didn't have a plan for Acapulco day, except to see the cliff divers, so we had a couple hours to kill, so we walked with one of the guys in the blue shirts. What a huge mistake, huge. They directed us through the streets to the flea market, said this is my sisters shop, this is my brothers shop, whatever. I needed to replace a shot glass to a tequila/shot glass set I had bought in cozumel. We found the same type, asked the price, the woman said $14. My hubby said $14 dollars. I said, lets go. She said ok, how much you pay, $12, I said no. Hubby looked at the bottom of the shot glass, there was a $3 price tag on it. He held it up to the lady, she said, no, that not the price. I said lets go. We walked away, she chased us down, the blue shirt relative, said what you looking for, we can help you. We said, no, just looking. We ran into a few other people we had met on the ship, also looking to get the heck out of there. Everything we looked at was way over priced, didn't even come close to being the right price even with negotiating. Told hubby to get me out of there now..and we left, back to port area. We grabbed a cab and headed to La Perla for the cliff diving show. This area was beautiful. We were a bit early, gave us a chance to get some nice photos before the crowds set in for the show. You can watch from many different places. If you booked the excursion, you watch from inside the restaurant through big windows. We were able to purchase great seating for $12 per person, and that was after we had already walked up and down the long steps outside, in the heat..lol, almost dying, thought hubby was going to have to carry me back up the stairs. It was nice to sit down, in the shade on the balcony of the restaurant. We had a great view of the divers, perfect for pics. The $12 per person was totally worth it and that price included two free drinks per person. (Corona, margarita, whatever). I had water, lol, hubby drank my beers..lol. The cliff divers finally came out, climbed down the left side of cliff, swam over, climbed up the right side. The prayed, posed and then finally started diving. Quite a site to see. When they were done, I guess the divers quickly got inside where all people exited, and waited for tips. We were slow to leave so they were posing for picks at the restaurant entrance by the time we exited the restaurant.
We looked around the shops attached to the restaurant, as they were in the recommeded shopping list. Don't even bother, they are so over priced it is terrible. High pressure salesmen following you everywhere. They even waited for hubby to come out of the bathroom, had some jewelry I had looked at in the little pouch ready for him to pay..we said no..we don't want it..lol.
I had had enough, time to catch a cab to Senor Frogs.
That was a crazy thing..lol. We asked for Senor Frogs, confirmed price and away we went. Well, Senor Frogs restaurant is at the other end of the bay, on a hill. Supposedly a great picture spot. The taxi driver dropped us about 1/2 way there at a Senor Frogs tshirt shop..lol. Hubby says, well the restaurant must be upstairs. I said, I don't think there is a restaurant here, we confirmed that with the sales clerk..lol. Good thing was they had great Senor Frogs tshirts, 1/2 price. Anyway, we had a map of the places we wanted to stop. So now..not sure where we were, the map wasn't making a lot of sense. So we grabbed another cab and said Hard Rock Cafe..sure enough, we were still a ways a way from it. Good thing is hard Rock and Planet Hollywood are side by side. So we bought our mdse, looked around and took photos at both and decided time for lunch. We had planned on eating at Carlos and Charlies..so grab another cab and head back there.
The food and Carlos and Charlies did not disappoint. It has a totally different menu than the one in Cozumel (if any of you have visited while doing the 7 night). They also did a mango margarita for me, on the rocks, since I don't do the frozen ones. It was fantastic. This restaurant is on the 2nd floor overlooking the busy streets, so we sat and relaxed, did a lot of people watching. There were some young men acting like hot dogs on motorcycles, racing up and down the roads, doing wheelies, in and out of the busy traffic.
After lunch we headed back to ship. We decided Acapulco was a great expierence, but not a place we would never have or want to visit again.
After downing lots of water we decided to head to the rainforest to relax, before dinner. In the rainforest we talked with another couple and an older woman, none of them were impressed with Acapulco either..lol. On a good note..some other friends we had met on the ship had taken their entire party to the correct Senor Frogs, at the other end of the bay and they said it was excellent. Great views.
Again when we sailed from Acapulco, people lining the shores, Captain Mickey out waving at everyone. The people were definately excited to have the Magic and mickey in town.
So, tonight was pirate night. We had purchased our pirate earrings and eye patches in the MK at WDW before the cruise, we knew we got bandannas for our heads at dinner, and I had found some blinking pirate pins in the oriental trading catalog, so I took those along for our tablemates and servers. We didn't have full costumes (quite a few people did and they looked great), but we looked great and got the cutest pics. The wife of the couple at a table beside us was dressed as the red head. She looked great. The server for that table was not familiar with the POC and the red head..so they were trying to explain to the server. Everyone at our table started banging on the table with our hands, saying, we want the redhead, we want the redhead..lol. The redhead looked at us and started laughing, she said exactly. The server still did not understand. Anyway, the pirates dinner menu is excellent:
Appetizers:
Blackbeards Jumbo Crab Cake
(with a fruit salsa and honey lime tropical coleslaw)
Cannon Smoked Bbq chicken drumsticks
(with onion rings and sweet chili pepper sauce)
The Buccaneer's sun-ripened pineapple
(with a coconut covered banana and orange glaze)
Pearls of the Caribbean
(crabmeat, shrimp and salmon mixed in pearls of couscous with lemon grass infused vinaigrette)
The bread was the Jamaincan Banana bread loaf
Soups and Salads
Chilled to the bone honeydew melon and mango soup
Caribbean style spicy vegetable gumbo soup
Hideaway bay salad
Jerk Chicken Salad
Mr. Smee's Bib lettuce
Main Course
Treasure of the Sea Grilled shrimp and seared scallops
(served on strings of pasta and fresh, creamy tomato sauce)
Jack Sparrows fruit marinated roasted loin of pork
(cooked with orange and pineapple juice served with sweet mashed potatoes, snow peas and baby corn on a fruity pool of grog)
Castaway Cay's chicken breast rubbed with pirate island spice
(with rice and beans and fried okra on a rich spiced glaze)
Captain Hooks coconut crusted oven baked snapper
(with Island fried rice and fire roasted vegetables topped with red pepper and pineapple salsa)
The Black Pearl's Oven roasted Beef Tenderloin
(with sour cream chive smashed potatoes, sugar baked carrots with a deep red wine glaze)
Desserts
Shiver me timbers white chocolate cheesecake
(on a macadamia barnacle bottom)
Floating Island of Tropical Fruit Treasure's
(meringue chest filled with tropical fruit and berries surrounded by a vanilla sauce)
Walk the triple layered chocolate gangplank cake
(and fall into a rich dark chocolate sauce)
The lost Banana Treasure
(found with caramel rum sauce and vanilla ice cream, flambeed by your head server in the dining room)
The Calypso Ice Cream Sundae
(containing rum and raisin ice cream, caribbean cake and a rum caramel sauce)
Our dinner ran late, after we the pirates singing we had to hurry up to deck 10 for the pirates party and fireworks. They do a really good job with that, and then the set up of course for more food..lol. You definately don't go hungry. Our tablemates came back to our cabin to visit for a while, they left and we went to bed. All in all a pretty good day.
Tuesday May 24th, 2005
A day at Sea
I woke up with a horrible headache. We went to grab a bit of breakfast, and I went back to bed. Hubby woke me up at 1pm, said do you want to go to the auction, I said, I will come check it out for a minute. I couldn't last..my head was pounding, I told hubby I was going back to room, left him with the bid card..lol, now you know how bad I felt..lol. I went back to bed and didn't wake up again until 7pm. There was no way I was going to dinner, as bad as I was feeling, so we were going to order room service, although we had pretty much exhausted that menu, we decided why not just pop into topsiders, and bring the food back to the stateroom. Keep in mind, I looked like h*ll, lol. I put a scruncii in my hair and we headed up to topsiders. Told the door host we just wanted to grab dinner and take it back to our stateroom, he said we couldn't do that, china and all, saftey hazard. I said, you got to be kidding, lol. He said, just come on in and sit down, we will serve you very quickly. So we did. Much to our surprise, this is really the way to dine on the ship. We loved it. The menu is almost identical to that being served in the dining room, except you get salad bar instead of all the individual salads offered on the menu. The service was outstanding, and yes it was fast. Where it usually takes us almost two hours in the dining room, we were in and out in a flash, and we were not rushed. I started felling a bit better. The server was asking us about boyz II men, the talent on ship for the evenings show. Well, we had missed the 6:30 show. Another diner said they were fantastic, I looked at hubby and said..wasn't that a group our daughter liked back in her pre-teen years, he said yes. (She confirmed this when we met up with her in CA). Anyway, after dinner, I popped in to catch a couple songs just to see what it was all about, they were good, then back to bed, as I was exhausted. That headache wore me out and we were both looking forward to Mazatlan in the morning.
Wednesday May 25th, 2005
Mazatlan
We were both looking forward to today, as other cruisers told us this was a better port than Acapulco.
We didn't have any excursions planned, however there were a few places we wanted to see. Time to grab a cab..lol. You have to take a little tram type thing over to where you exit the port. This works out great. Again you go through a small shopping type building out to the city. Plenty of drivers were lined up, all types of cabs. I said, well, lets grab a cab, I started walking, as I had my eye on the one I wanted, he was at the end of the line. One of those old square looking volkswagons, with the top cut off, and a canopy for the top. Very popular in Mazatlan and a great way to get around. He had a hot wheels type logo on the rear bumper which caught my eye. Hubby said, where are you going..I said to the cab at the end..he said ok..just checking..lol. The driver was excellent. We told him we wanted to go to the Golden Zone for shopping, we confirmed price and off we went. Not to far down the road he said would you like a tour of Mazatlan, hubby said, how much. Driver said I can take you places the big tour buses can't go, up the hills and narrow streets, hubby again said how much. Driver said $30, we said excellent, lets do it. Wow..what a treat. This turned out to be one of the best bargains ever (although we did give him $60 instead of the $30 he asked for just because he was so great). He took us everywhere, by all the monuments, the famous cathedral, Old town, new town, way up in the hills. Everytime I lifted my camera to take a photo he pulled over so I could get the pics I wanted. He took photos of us whenever I asked. It was totally excellent, and I think he took a good 1 1/2 to two hours with us. He gave us shopping advice, where to go and where not to go. He let us get out of the cab to check things out, and he waited for us the whole time. We spent plenty of time in the beautiful cathedral (this is a must see). He said, ok, now I am going to drop you at this end of the golden zone and you can work your way back. We said perfect as that is what we like to do. For any of you on the west coast cruises..don't book a excursion tour..definately do this on your own. We talked with people on the bus tours..they didn't get to see a lot of the things we did, because of the narrow streets. It was excellent.
Shopping in Mazatlan was also excellent. The first store, where he dropped us had beautiful artwork and craft items..of course that is where we started spending and it didn't stop all day..lol. We had a wonderful lunch at the Panama Restaurant. And great buys on jewelry at Cielito Lindo. We loved this place, and because we made purchases, they gave us a ride back to the ship. They said..just come back at this time and we will take you back for free so you don't have to get cab. We said great. Of course, we were running late, did more shopping on the way back, so we popped in just to see if we were too late. They said no, the shuttle has already left, but we will find someone to take you. The owner himself came out and gave us a ride in his BMW. We thought that was quite nice. We told him mickey usually comes out and waves to everyone as the ship is leaving, he said great, his wife had just called him and wanted to know if they (wife/him and son) were going to all see the Magic together before she leaves port, he said now he would definately have to bring the wife and son.
Of course we had so much fun shopping this was the one and only port I forgot to mail our postcards in..unbelievable.
Well, back to the ship. We relaxed on the balcony for a bit and I wanted to go see Kermit the frog show. Kermit was great, Bob Sagat was horrible. I left when he started talking about his daughters thongs. This guy is, well, ugh is all I can say. I sure hope he isn't the entertainment on the return cruise..lol. Guest services received a lot of complaints about his off colored humor.
Time for dinner, great again and then we went with our tablemates to see Rich Purpura at Rockin Bar D. He was very funny. After that off to bed, as tomorrow was another early day..it was Cabo day..lol.
Thursday May 26th, 2005
Cabo San Lucas
When we woke up, hubby says, we are here already. He said come look, and Los Arcos was right in front of us..so I got great pictures right from our Balcony. We hurried to pack our backpack up, grabbed some breakfast, again at topsiders and head off the ship. Tendering was a breeze, no problem at all. Non of the shops opened until 9am, but we thought we would just walk around the town, check things out. That turned out working out great..as not many people were out and about yet..so we got great photos of us, with no other bodies in the photos..lol.
One hint for you all, if you are tired of the ships breakfast..all the little breakfast spots along the dock as you walk into town are open..so eat in Cabo that morning..you have plenty of time before the stores open and everything smelled delicious. If we had only known..we would have had breakfast off the ship, in Cabo.
Anyway, I had printed a map from the internet of the shopping area so we walked around, found of few of the places we would be coming back to, found Cabo Wabo of course. Then decided..time to head to post office. Well the ships map was a little off, so we went, well, lets just say the long way..lol, to the post office. Finally found it, mailed our post cards and even got stamps in our passports. By then all the shops were open up. We stopped first at a little convenience type place, to get water. Found some adorable small coke bottles, great prices on vanilla and a great selection of tequila. We got the water and decided we would come back later for the heavy stuff..lol. After that, Hard Rock cafe for pins and tshirts. We were checking the tshirt shops for a shirt Bob had seen in mazatlan (they were all sold out of his size there..yes in very shop). We did find it in Cabo. He was happy. Did a bit more shopping and headed back to cabo wabo for lunch. There we ran into another dis board couple. The finished their lunch first..so they waited for us at the rainbow shot bar. Lunch at Cabo Wabo was very good by the way. Anyway, by the time we got downstairs a group of dis'ers had gathered and one of them was about to do the rainbow shots. They line 7 (I think) shotglasses up on the bar and dump an alcohol mixture into them which ends up looking like a rainbow. Great pics and of course hubby had to try it also...lol. The same group decided to head over to gigglin marlin for drinks, also on my map of places to visit..lol, so we went with. Here, the rainbow shot boys decided they would be hung upside down and have shots. This was great also, although I am sure at night with a full bar it is really a riot..lol. After relaxing and visiting for a bit, the rest of the dis'ers went on their way and we hung out with the couple whose hubby was doing shots with mine. Keep in mind..these are very low alcohol shots at both places so no one is getting drunk. We kind of shopped our way back to the ship. We stopped at Slims, the smallest bar in the world. There, if you buy a tshirt, you get a free shot of tequila..lol. Well, we bought the tshirts and gave away the shots of tequila. Doing a little more walking towards the ship, picking up the free jewelry and such from the passporter (shopping book you can purchase on the ship). The other wife was looking for a particular tshirt so she led us on the next path. The two hubbies noticed a tiki type bar and decided one more beer before getting back on the ship. This bar also has sushi and sashimi. We had sat for a bit, the chef brought us out samples..the food was excellent. He said do you want to order, we said, nope, we really need to get back to the ship. We walked back along the dock, there were sea lions playing in the water. We stopped at the tequila booth, never can have enough tequila..lol. Snapped some pictures and in line to tender back to ship. We had a wonderful afternoon with this other couple.
Once back on the ship, we grabbed some water and decided to head up to deck 10 to get a few more pics of cabo as we left..well, we waited and waited but we weren't leaving. Finally the captain made and announcement..we were having some difficulty with the anchor. So back to the cabin to relax. Los Arcos had again come into perfect view, so snapped a few more pics.
Hubby's feet were killing him so he called the spa and went up for a quick foot massage..lol. I went to shutters, picked up photos, etc. Had a few more taken with the characters..lol. Funny how fast you can gather pics for the 30 photo package..lol. I was heading to twice charmed when hubby was coming off the elevator..I said lets go to the new show. The twice charmed show is very, very good. We both enjoyed it, although hubbys favorite is still hercules. It was formal night, so time to shower for dinner. Getting out of shower I got a bloody nose..hubby was already laying on the bed exhausted. He said..just lay down, lets skip dinner and go to sleep early..lol.
That's exactly what we did.
Friday May 27th, 2005
Day at Sea
Ugh, we couldn't believe it the cruise was almost over. We started the day with a couples well being massage. That was very nice. Tony and Jezzica at the spa are great. We picked up all our final pictures at shutters. It was a chilly day, everyone buying jackets and sweatshirts in the gift shops. We knew we needed to get packing. Everytime we bought something we just kept stuffing the bags under the bed, lol. Hubby said we are never going to have room, I said we haven't bought that much..lol. OMG, when it was time to pack..lol. Oh well, thank goodness we had bought a couple of those crazy bags when we were in Mazatlan, we needed them to take souveniers off the ship. Our other bags would be packed tight. We went to cove cafe to get coffee, walked around the ship a bit, and back to packing. We were suppose to have high tea at 3:30pm, decided we needed to keep packing, lol, what a chore. Palo called, said no problem, no charge. I thought that was nice of them. We headed up to get ice cream, ran into the cabo couple. Both hubbys decided to smoke the cigars they got in cabo and finish off the scotch my hubby had brought on board. Ran into a couple other friends who helped polish off the bottle of scotch.
Packing is almost done, time for dinner. We had tips already for everyone, along with some gifts. I hate the final dinners as it is so hard to say goodbye to everyone. We had such wonderful tablemates and servers. Although..a huge percentage of people from this cruise was going exactly the same place we were..lol, Disneyland. We finished dinner, visited with our tablemates and servers a while, took lots of photos and barely made it back to the room to get our luggage out by the cut off time..lol. A wonderful lithograph was on our bed, thank goodness I had packed a tube to roll it up in for travel.
We waited for our stateroom host to come back, as he was the only one we had not given the tip to yet. It was a late night, hubby was tired and was snoring away. I was trying to get all the receipts together for customs, as I knew I had to go down there in the morning, as we were over on alcohol, again..lol. Customs form finally ready, I am now off to bed.
Saturday May 28th, 2005
Port of LA, San Pedro
Well, I couldn't sleep all night, kept waking up. At 5:30, hubby said, we might as well just go up on deck. We weren't the only ones up..lol. The breeze was cool as we were coming in to port. Plenty of sea lions all over the buoys. I think most everyone was in a state of disbelief. The two weeks, 14 full nights were over. As we got closer all the characters come up on deck to join us for the entrance and docking. There were a few people waving and honking. A big blow up type mickey was on top the building.
There were castmembers waving with the big mickey hands to us. We were docked, the coast guard and customs officials boarded the ship. It was time for us to shower and head down to customs. Customs line was long, not slow, just hadn't started yet. It got a very late start. Once it started moving, it went very quickly. We didn't have to pay anything, we were good to go. Back up to the cabin, Goofy and Mickey were heading over to some press tents or something on the other side. We watched them bounce on over..lol. A couple helicopters picked people up in the same area. The fuel barge pulled up. There was an announcement..no smoking we are being refueled..however there were plenty of people smoking on their balconies. Just what are they thinking..ugh. Anyway, time for breakfast. I do have to say..breakfast today was excellent..lol. Hubby told our server he was very hungry..lol, so she brought him two plates, loaded with food. I about died laughing, hubby didn't know what to think. We visited with our tablemates while we waited to be called to leave. We had a car picking us up at 10am. Well, by the time we got to the car it was almost 11am. Ugh, getting off the ship took a bit. Passport people in one line. Birth Certs in the other line. We had passports, luckily, definatley the shorter of the two lines. Got up to the customs agent, answered the questions and off to find our luggage. The port area we exited through had a new coat of paint. Purple/blue combo.
We had 5 very heavy bags, lol, plus our carry off stuff, lol. What a riot. There weren't enough porters, the line for the porters was very long. Hubby started connecting all our luggage together while I waited in line, just in case. He finally got it and we rolled on out of there, without a porter. I said, wait here, I will walk down and look for our car. It would be easy to recognize because the driver will be holding a sign with our name on it. I was just hoping he was still there. Sure enough, there he was, I flagged him down and he found a spot to pull over. Now, getting all our luggage in was another story. He had a lot of stuff in his trunk already. We stuffed everything in, he confirmed where we were going and we were off (with tears in our eyes...why is it so hard to leave this ship). As I heard later, people with transfers had quite a time getting where they needed to go, I am glad we got a car on our own. There was a memorial day parade going on, but our driver had no problem going around it and getting us to the GC hotel. We signed the paperwork, tipped him extra. Bob dealt with the bellperson and the luggage and I went inside to check in. There was already a long line to check in..lol. There was a castmember at the front of the line apologizing, saying we didn't expect you all so early. I just thought ot myself..well, the ship docked early, what time did she think we would all arrive..lol.
Anyway, we had three great nights at DL after that, our daughter met with us, as she is stationed at the air force base out there. We saw plenty of our friends from the ship.
What a wonderful two and a half weeks. I know we did many more things on and off the ship than I have listed in my trip reports, I have the photos to proove it..lol. The cruise ship castmembers did a wonderful job with the schedule keeping everyone busy. I know we were pretty much non-stop busy from the time we woke up until the time we went to bed while on the ship. The food was fantastic, especially the new menus. I think some of the old menus should be replaced with the new. We made a lot of great friends on the ship and I am sure we will see them again on future cruises..lol. The one thing that totally amazed everyone we talked with, is how disney totally underestimated the crowd they would have sailing with them on this 14 night adventure. What a group of disney lovers, who were also repeat cruisers, and how much they would all love this cruise. And we did.
Thanks for reading,
Cheryl
Really great trip report. Thanks for spending all the time to write it. 
