3 weeks of Disney Fun: New Orleans to San Diego WBPC plus Disneyland pre-trip report

otten

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 4, 2015
Hello and welcome to my pre-trip report. We are now less than 2 months out from departure on our epic adventure.

Who: Me, Megan 37, DH Andrew 38, Ava 8 and Isa 5
What: 2 days in New Orleans, 14 night Panama Canal Cruise to San Diego and 4 nights off site at Disneyland
When: March 2020

Background: Back in 2015 we did a western Caribbean on the Magic. Our girls were 3.5 and ten months old at the time. It was a good trip but since our oldest refused to spend any time in Oceaneer's we left feeling like we'd missed out on things. Like our Palo brunch that was cut short after 40 minutes.

I've wanted to do another cruise ever since but it took 4 years to convince DH to do it. Originally we were going to book a caribbean cruise in August 2019 but a family wedding caused us to change our plans. Then we were going to do either a 7 night Caribbean or a 4 night Bahamas plus Disney World over spring break 2020. Since I knew prices would rise quickly for that time of year I planned on booking on silver opening day.

The itineraries were announced and I started looking at which ones would work best for our Spring Break dates (we are lucky that our school schedules are usually announced 2 years in advance). We had almost decided on a particular 4 night. Then we saw the price of the Panama Canal cruise. It was too good a deal to pass up.

We booked on October 3, 520 days from sailing. It's been a long wait to say the least.
 
Pre-Cruise Plans

We are taking red-eye flights from Sea-Tac. Due to a weird combination of airline vouchers and credit card points, we are travelling separately. Ava and I are on one itinerary, and Andrew and Isa are on another. Both flights depart Seatac at approximately the same time but layover in different cities and then land in New Orleans within 30 minutes of each other.

Arrival Day in New Orleans

After we all land and get our bags we'll take a Lyft to our hotel the Dauphine Hotel in the French Quarter. We'll drop off our bags and then perhaps go grab some beignets. Then we plan to visit the Storybook land park for a low key activity until check in time. We might visit the art museum while we're in the area, depending on energy levels.

Once we can check into our room we'll take naps before getting dinner somewhere.

Day 2

We've booked a tour with French Quartour kids which comes highly recommended as a thing to do with kids in New Orleans. After that we are doing a jazz brunch and then we'll play it by ear for the afternoon. At some point we'll need to pick up our allowed wine to bring onboard and any incidentals we might have left at home. I think we might get take out for dinner this night so we can make sure we're organized for the following morning.
 
Booking Window

Our window opened December 7. Had no trouble getting Frozen meet and greet, princess gathering or the VIP breakfast. No Palo brunch to be had so settled for dinner. I did luck into a few tastings so overall I am pretty happy.
 
Hello and welcome to my pre-trip report. We are now less than 2 months out from departure on our epic adventure.

Who: Me, Megan 37, DH Andrew 38, Ava 8 and Isa 5
What: 2 days in New Orleans, 14 night Panama Canal Cruise to San Diego and 4 nights off site at Disneyland
When: March 2020

Background: Back in 2015 we did a western Caribbean on the Magic. Our girls were 3.5 and ten months old at the time. It was a good trip but since our oldest refused to spend any time in Oceaneer's we left feeling like we'd missed out on things. Like our Palo brunch that was cut short after 40 minutes.

I've wanted to do another cruise ever since but it took 4 years to convince DH to do it. Originally we were going to book a caribbean cruise in August 2019 but a family wedding caused us to change our plans. Then we were going to do either a 7 night Caribbean or a 4 night Bahamas plus Disney World over spring break 2020. Since I knew prices would rise quickly for that time of year I planned on booking on silver opening day.

The itineraries were announced and I started looking at which ones would work best for our Spring Break dates (we are lucky that our school schedules are usually announced 2 years in advance). We had almost decided on a particular 4 night. Then we saw the price of the Panama Canal cruise. It was too good a deal to pass up.

We booked on October 3, 520 days from sailing. It's been a long wait to say the least.
My family will be joining you on most of your vacation. Is that okay?!? :) We arrive in New Orleans the day before. You know, just enough time to get us some beignets! After the cruise we are surprising our kids with 5 days offsite at DL as well. We just bought our tickets and max passes last weekend, so we are all set. I got so excited with your intro that I did not read your full posts yet - do you know about MaxPass? Game changer, especially with the parks most likely being quite busy with Spring Break. Happy planning, I cannot wait to follow along.

P.S. We are flying from Portland. Really we are not stalking you!
 


Booking Window

Our window opened December 7. Had no trouble getting Frozen meet and greet, princess gathering or the VIP breakfast. No Palo brunch to be had so settled for dinner. I did luck into a few tastings so overall I am pretty happy.
You should be able to get Palo Brunch once on the ship. It will be posted in the Navigator where to go once you board for Palo bookings. It has always worked for us when none showed available. I have also heard to keep checking for reservations before you leave for the cruise. Sometimes people cancel ahead of time.
 
My family will be joining you on most of your vacation. Is that okay?!? :) We arrive in New Orleans the day before. You know, just enough time to get us some beignets! After the cruise we are surprising our kids with 5 days offsite at DL as well. We just bought our tickets and max passes last weekend, so we are all set. I got so excited with your intro that I did not read your full posts yet - do you know about MaxPass? Game changer, especially with the parks most likely being quite busy with Spring Break. Happy planning, I cannot wait to follow along.

P.S. We are flying from Portland. Really we are not stalking you!

I do know about maxpass and we'll be getting it for sure. I used it on an adults only trip last year and yea, definitely a gamechanger.
 
We have our stateroom! Hurrah. We are as mid as we could possibly be and on deck 6 so a very central location. I think we'll be able to avoid the elevators most of the time which is great.

Embarkation Day Plans

We have a PAT of 11:30 so the morning of embarkation the plan is to get breakfast somewhere before hotel check out time and then check out and head to the port. We'll probably take a Lyft or Uber. We're travelling with portable booster seats that make ridesharing easy even with kids that still need booster seats.

At embarkation I'll make a beeline to wherever they are taking Palo reservations and then we'll get lunch. I'm suggesting we do the sit down lunch to avoid the chaos of Cabanas. By the time we're done lunch hopefully our room is ready and we'll drop off our bags and check out the kids club open house.
 


Port Day Plans

The first port is Cozumel and we're doing a dolphin excursion at Chanakaab. We had to book this through Disney because we're in Cozumel on a Sunday and Chanakaab isn't officially open. Since it isn't officially open I'm not sure what other activities there will be available besides the dolphins but we'll hopefully be able to explore a little after our dolphin swim.

Grand Cayman

On our last cruise we had a fantastic day at Seven Mile Beach that we did on our own. It was super easy to do. We got a taxi at the port no problem and then coming back we took a bus which was also very easy. We plan on doing the same thing again this time.

Cartagena

In Cartagena we're doing the Cartagena by Gastronomic Tour through Disney. Since our time in Cartagena is quite short we feel safer doing an excursion through Disney here.

Puerto Vallarta

In PV my husband and older daughter are going to do a kayak tour while my youngest and I do a Mexican cooking class

Cabo San Lucas

We don't have firm plans for Cabo yet. I don't think we'll do a Disney excursion because none of the offerings really appeal. I'm open to suggestions.
 
DisneyBounding

Here's where I might seem crazy even for the Dis. I have made plans for coordinated Disneybounds for every night of the cruise. Also, since I make all my own clothes, I am sewing most of the items that we don't already have. Here are the plans:

Classic Characters: Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Daisy
Princess and the Frog: Facilier, Tiana, Naveen and Ray
Beauty and the Beast: Belle, Beast, Lumiere and Chip
Frozen: Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Sven
Little Mermaid: Ariel, Ursula, Flounder and Sebastian
Snow White: Snow White, Grumpy, Evil Queen, Poison Apple
Star Wars: Darth Vader, Leia, Rey, C3P0
Alice in Wonderland: Alice, Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit, Queen of Hearts
Winnie the Pooh: Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Pooh
Sleeping Beauty: Aurora, Maleficent, Flora, Prince Philip
Incredibles: Mr and Mrs Incredible, Violet and Edna
Cinderella: Cinderella, Lady Tremaine, Anastasia and Drizello the wicked stepbrother
Tangled: Rapunzel, Mother Gothel, Pascal, Flynn
Peter Pan for Pirate Night: Hook, Wendy, Tinkerbell, Smee

A lot of these use the same pieces of clothing from other days so we aren't actually packing 14 separate outfits for each person. I'm about halfway through sewing the items I don't already have.
 
We are doing the same cruise / Disneyland in 2021. What type of transportation are you using between San Diego and Anaheim?
 
We are doing the same cruise / Disneyland in 2021. What type of transportation are you using between San Diego and Anaheim?

We're taking the amtrak. The station is just a few minutes away from the port. When we arrive in Anaheim we'll take an uber from the station to Disneyland.
 
thanks, we are planning Amtrack too. Have fun and let us hear from you after your trip!
 
DisneyBounding

Here's where I might seem crazy even for the Dis. I have made plans for coordinated Disneybounds for every night of the cruise. Also, since I make all my own clothes, I am sewing most of the items that we don't already have. Here are the plans:

Classic Characters: Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Daisy
Princess and the Frog: Facilier, Tiana, Naveen and Ray
Beauty and the Beast: Belle, Beast, Lumiere and Chip
Frozen: Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Sven
Little Mermaid: Ariel, Ursula, Flounder and Sebastian
Snow White: Snow White, Grumpy, Evil Queen, Poison Apple
Star Wars: Darth Vader, Leia, Rey, C3P0
Alice in Wonderland: Alice, Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit, Queen of Hearts
Winnie the Pooh: Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Pooh
Sleeping Beauty: Aurora, Maleficent, Flora, Prince Philip
Incredibles: Mr and Mrs Incredible, Violet and Edna
Cinderella: Cinderella, Lady Tremaine, Anastasia and Drizello the wicked stepbrother
Tangled: Rapunzel, Mother Gothel, Pascal, Flynn
Peter Pan for Pirate Night: Hook, Wendy, Tinkerbell, Smee

A lot of these use the same pieces of clothing from other days so we aren't actually packing 14 separate outfits for each person. I'm about halfway through sewing the items I don't already have.
I hope I run into you and your family around the ship!
 
Port Day Plans

The first port is Cozumel and we're doing a dolphin excursion at Chanakaab. We had to book this through Disney because we're in Cozumel on a Sunday and Chanakaab isn't officially open. Since it isn't officially open I'm not sure what other activities there will be available besides the dolphins but we'll hopefully be able to explore a little after our dolphin swim.

Grand Cayman

On our last cruise we had a fantastic day at Seven Mile Beach that we did on our own. It was super easy to do. We got a taxi at the port no problem and then coming back we took a bus which was also very easy. We plan on doing the same thing again this time.

Cartagena

In Cartagena we're doing the Cartagena by Gastronomic Tour through Disney. Since our time in Cartagena is quite short we feel safer doing an excursion through Disney here.

Puerto Vallarta

In PV my husband and older daughter are going to do a kayak tour while my youngest and I do a Mexican cooking class

Cabo San Lucas

We don't have firm plans for Cabo yet. I don't think we'll do a Disney excursion because none of the offerings really appeal. I'm open to suggestions.
We did the dolphin encounter on our own the last time we were in Cozumel. We all loved it! Kids at the time were 6 and 12. We are in the same boat with the Sunday and everything is “closed” situation. Wondering what our experience will really be like. I hope they have more open for you. We added on the sea lion experience once we got there for much cheaper than posted on their website. It was amazing - it was just our family. The time with the dolphins was just our family and another couple. The included food was okay. There is a small cove with a nice beach just on the other side of the entrance. We spent a little time over there before we went back to the ship.
 
Got a Palo brunch reservation! With that I have managed to pre-book everything I want except maybe the wine tasting. Now what am I supposed to with my time if I'm not stalking the website for brunch openings? LOL

Less than a month until we leave now and we are starting to approach the stressed stage of the pre-trip period. I am almost done the outfit sewing. For my Lady Tremaine Disneybound I made a super glamourous 1930s gown and I'm really pleased with it. I still need to sew a firely costume for Ava's Ray from Princess and the Frog. Then I think that's it.

I've just about got the Fish Extender gifts done also and I'm starting to throw stuff into suitcases.
 
Sea Day Plans

Day 2 - We have the Princess Gathering at 9:30 am and then I have champagne tasting at 12:15 (very excited to have snagged that one). This is formal night and I've requested to be in Tiana's since one of my formal night Disneybounds is Tiana themed. Fingers crossed that comes through.

Day 5 - We have the Frozen Gathering at 9am followed by BBB at 12. Then mixology followed by the Royal Tea. (I'm hoping to switch Mixology to a better spot so it's not quite so close to the tea party). A very princessy day overall.

Day 7 - Panama Canal crossing. As a morning person I plan to be among the crazy people up very early to get a good spot on deck for our approach to the locks. Then we'll do activities around the ship.

Day 8 - We don't have anything booked on this day at this point. It is the night of the Frozen show so I do know what we'll be wearing lol.

Day 9 - Pirate night

Day 10 - We have the character breakfast at 9am and then a chocolate and liquor tasting at 12.

Day 11 - Palo Brunch! YESSSSSSS

Day 14 - no specific plans other than packing and being sad that the cruise is over. But there is still DISNEYLAND! to come.
 
1 week to go! OMG. I have a couple more things to make for our outfits (no minute like the last minute lol) and this weekend I need to pack. eek. We leave on Tuesday night. I feel like this last bit has snuck right up on me.

Bought the photo package. I was on the fence about it but then I figured I'm putting so much effort into these outfit plans that I'll want pictures to show for it.
 

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