I have a WONDERful feeling about this! 2015 WB Panama Canal Trip Report, Completed 6/14/15

GooniesAndy

Mouseketeer
Joined
Sep 18, 2011
First, a breakdown:

Itinerary (links will be added as report is updated)
Before the cruise
April 30, 2015 Travel day
May 1, 2015 Depart Miami, Florida
* Navigator
* Part One
* Part Two
May 2, 2015 Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 3, 2015 Cozumel, Mexico
* Navigator
* Report
May 4, 2015 Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 5, 2015 Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 6, 2015 Cartagena, Colombia
* Navigator
* Report, Part One
* Report, Part Two
May 7, 2015 Canal transit
* Navigator
* Report, Part One
* Report, Part Two
May 8, 2015 Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 9, 2015 Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 10, 2015 Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 11, 2015 Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 12, 2015 Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 13, 2015 Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
* Navigator
* Report, Part One
* Report, Part Two
May 14, 2015 Sea day
* Navigator
* Report
May 15, 2015 Disembark in San Diego, California
* Report

The Cast
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Me (Erin): I am a stay-at-home mom and freelance copy editor. I love all things Disney and am lucky enough to live a couple hours away from Disneyland.

Elliott, 9: Elliott is at an interesting transitional age right now. He is still a kid, but he is growing up and doesn't want to be classified with the little ones. He feels like he's too old to wait in line for characters, but there are a few of them that he will have fun with if he randomly sees them “in the wild.” He loves to make new friends and come up with elaborate games to play.

Oliver, 6: Oliver is quite a character. He has a flair for the dramatic and knows how adorable he is, which helps him get away with more than he should. He still wants to spend time with me and he loves seeing characters, though he isn't a fan of waiting in lines so he doesn't see them all. Oliver wanders the ship making friends with all, children, adults, castmembers – no one will be spared!

We live in Coronado, California, which is a small city right across the bay from downtown San Diego. You may have seen pictures of our lovely bridge or our famous Hotel Del Coronado. Whenever the Wonder is in port we drive down to the park at the end of our street, where we can look across the bay and wish we were on board. If you are ever in port in San Diego, look across the water more to the left than the right, and that's us!

Our Story
So, I am really going to open up here, in the interest of providing a real understanding of what this trip meant to us.

We went on our first Disney cruise three years ago, in March of 2012. We took the Wonder out of LA on one of the now-discontinued Mexican Riviera cruises and just had an amazing time. At the time we were dealing with my husband's alcoholism and had decided he would not go on the trip with us, however at the last minute I decided to let him go so that the kids could make some happy memories with him before whatever happened happened.

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Luckily the trip went off with only minor hiccups and the memories were made, because a week after we returned home things deteriorated with my husband to the point that I took the kids and left. That was hard on them, but they were doing ok until two months later, when my mother-in-law, to whom they were very close, suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Oliver was only 3, so he doesn't have many memories of all of this, but Elliott was 6 and remembers everything. The last few years have been rough for him.

Fast forward to Spring of 2014. Things had been very difficult for the family as the children dealt with the instability of having a parent in the throes of addiction. The decision had been made that in order to facilitate healing for the children, I would remain a stay-at-home parent, being a constant and reliable presence in their lives. The downside of that was that finances have been very tight. It has absolutely been worth it, but things like real vacations were set aside.

When Disney released the Spring 2015 itineraries, I decided that I was going to find a way to do the three-day cruise that was leaving from the port of San Diego – a quick ten minute drive from our house! My children (and I, frankly) needed something special to look forward to. I had made the booking, but not yet paid the deposit, when my father-in-law drew me aside to tell me that he had finally felt up to dealing with my mother-in-law's life insurance policy, and he wanted to give us the gift of money “to do something special that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do.”

The kids and I sat down and I told them we were going to take a vacation. I asked them what they wanted to do. Oliver instantly said, “China!” Elliott thought that a visit to Atlantis in the Bahamas would be great. Hawaii was a serious, realistic contender. And on and on as I researched every possibility. The final two candidates were Disney World and a Disney cruise. We looked at Alaska, but when I saw that for the same cost (maybe even less once we considered transportation) we could do the two-week Panama Canal cruise, we decided that it would be worth waiting a whole year instead of a few months. We would do a cheapie Carnival cruise over the summer to tide us over.

Starting our countdown in the vicinity of 400 days meant that we had a long time to plan, prepare, and get excited. I joined our cruise meet-up group, which was full of equally excited people and very active. It was a hard year, but knowing we had this vacation to look forward to at the end of it all got us through everything life threw at us. Important lesson learned: always have something to look forward to! It doesn't have to be something as major as a two-week cruise through the Panama Canal, but knowing there is a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel can get you through about anything!

I am a serious planner, so I spent the year making and updating and sorting lists, setting aside everything we might need, and getting to know our cruise group. Traveling as a single parent with two children who likely would want to spend significant time in the kid clubs, having a network of other adults was wonderful. I enjoy my alone time, sitting around reading and relaxing, but sometimes it is just nice to have an adult to talk to or to hang out with at an activity.

As we got closer to the trip, I started to panic a little bit, imagining myself hiding away in the cabin all day. One of the unfortunate side effects of everything that has happened with my husband is that I “hermitized,” not wanting to interact socially because I didn't want to have to make hard explanations. In a lot of ways I forgot how to make friends as I became more introverted and awkward. Luckily, it turns out I didn't have to worry. I met quite a few people and made real friendships. I feel like I found a piece of myself on this trip that I didn't even realize I was missing!

All in all, we are very lucky people and the memories from this trip will carry us forward for a long time to come!
 
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I am looking forward to hear more about your trip! We did the same cruise last year and it will be fun to compare.

It seems like the cruise was a great success for all of you and was able to restore some happiness in your life that you all definitely needed. Thanks for including the whole story of the trip!
 
Erin, I love how open and honest you are about what this cruise meant to you and the boys. I know you had a fabulous time and I hope that you were able to make some wonderful new memories with your boys and have the much-needed holiday you all deserved x Can't wait to read about the trip from your perspective.
 
Erin, thank you for writing this up. I have loved seeing your posts on our meet thread and I enjoyed meeting you in the port. I'm a terrible joiner, and as such, we didn't participate in a lot of the group things. I wish I'd gotten a chance to sit and chat with you. Can't wait to read your report. This cruise was the greatest trip ever for my family.
 


Erin, looking forward to your report. Glad you and your sons had an awesome cruise. Thanks for sharing your stoey of what led 7p to the cruise. Dave and I had an amazing experience on this PC cruise.

Janet Ziegler
 
This was a wonderful cruise and I am so pleased you managed to be onboard with your two lovely boys. Lots of memories for you all, and thanks to your father in law for the gift enabling you to make them.
 
I am looking forward to hear more about your trip! We did the same cruise last year and it will be fun to compare.

It seems like the cruise was a great success for all of you and was able to restore some happiness in your life that you all definitely needed. Thanks for including the whole story of the trip!

Thank you! I read your trip report, and I loved it! These reports are the best for helping to get excited about a vacation. And for me, I treat mine like a diary so that we will always be able to remember all of our fun!

Erin, I love how open and honest you are about what this cruise meant to you and the boys. I know you had a fabulous time and I hope that you were able to make some wonderful new memories with your boys and have the much-needed holiday you all deserved x Can't wait to read about the trip from your perspective.

Thanks so much! It was great to meet you!

Erin, thank you for writing this up. I have loved seeing your posts on our meet thread and I enjoyed meeting you in the port. I'm a terrible joiner, and as such, we didn't participate in a lot of the group things. I wish I'd gotten a chance to sit and chat with you. Can't wait to read your report. This cruise was the greatest trip ever for my family.

I'm rather shy, so I understand! I really have to force myself to do things, and a couple of times I turned around when I got overwhelmed. I do better in smaller groups usually. :) I was so happy to meet you in the port, though. I am glad you guys also had a wonderful time!

Erin, looking forward to your report. Glad you and your sons had an awesome cruise. Thanks for sharing your stoey of what led 7p to the cruise. Dave and I had an amazing experience on this PC cruise.

Janet Ziegler

It was so much fun! I wish I could have gotten to know everyone a bit better, but there were just so many of us in the group! Still, I am glad that you are all part of my happy memories. The "family reunion" had to have been one of the biggest ever!

This was a wonderful cruise and I am so pleased you managed to be onboard with your two lovely boys. Lots of memories for you all, and thanks to your father in law for the gift enabling you to make them.

Thank you. :) Yes, our level of gratitude to my father-in-law can't be understated. He is an amazing person, and we all keep each other going! Yesterday was actually the anniversary of my mother-in-law's passing, and though we try to always remember her with happiness and joy, this time of year brings back some of the sadness. It's hard to think of that time, but we got through it together and that is how we continue to move forward!
 


Erin-I had no idea all the background to your story before this. You are obviously doing a great job creating the stable environment for the boys because we found Elliott and Oliver to be very polite, funny, and well behaved. They are lucky to have a mom like you!
 
Erin-I had no idea all the background to your story before this. You are obviously doing a great job creating the stable environment for the boys because we found Elliott and Oliver to be very polite, funny, and well behaved. They are lucky to have a mom like you!

Thanks so much, Shelley! We all had a lot of fun playing trivia with you guys!
 
Thanks for sharing your story Erin. I'm so glad we had a chance to meet and you joined us for dinner at Palo. Looking forward to following along..this was definitely a memorable vacation!

Sally
 
Leading Up to the Cruise
Homework. Bleh. In order to be “allowed” to take my children on a two-week vacation during the school year, we all had to sign independent study contracts. That way, the school still gets their funding and the kids aren't marked absent. Unfortunately, it also means they leave for vacation with a big stack of schoolwork. Homework is a constant battle in our house, so to say that I was not looking forward to this is a huge understatement. We decided to try to conquer as much of the pile as possible the day before we left, so that Elliott would be free to fulfill our main tenet of our vacation philosophy: leave the real world behind!

Oliver's only homework was to make a vacation journal, and Elliott was also assigned the same task in addition to all the rest, so I spent an entire day the week before we left putting together scrapbooks for the boys, all ready to be filled in over the course of our vacation, with spaces ready to add in photos that would be printed out when we got home. I figured that if they had this assignment, we might as well do a really good job so that they would also be a keepsake of the trip. When I finish my trip report I will save a copy of it and all the photos I took onto CDs, which can be stuck into a holder at the back of their books. That way they will always be able to look back on this trip without forgetting anything.

We were participating in a traditional Fish Extender Exchange group, and I had also organized what we thought of as a Pixie Dust list for the kids. Since so few children do this itinerary as compared to a “normal” one, people were finding that they had accumulated more child-centric gifts than there were children on their lists. I started up a list where everyone could add their cabin number, kids' information, and anything else they might like to share (allergies, favorite/least favorite characters, etc.) I had been feeling incredibly stressed out about the real FE, worried that my gifts wouldn't be good enough, so I made the Pixie Dust list very relaxed – no rules, no expectations. Just a compilation of information on where the kids are! We had gifts for everyone on that list in addition to our official one, which I had tried to make as compact as possible. Still, it took up a full bag, which I carried on.

I got out the suitcases a couple of weeks in advance so that I could start formulating my packing plans and did the serious packing the weekend before we left, finishing up on the last day. One adult and two children, and we ended up checking three suitcases, doing two carry-ons, and each of us had a backpack (plus the tote of FE stuff). Luckily I had planned in advance for having help every step of the way, because the boys, try as they might, were not going to be too much help in hauling all that luggage.

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The last day before we left was very busy, with packing, homework, and general excitement. We were trying to get ourselves ready for the three-hour time change by waking up early, so we were all sleepy on the early side that night. Still, we had a hard time turning off our brains enough to get a good night's sleep!
 
Day (Negative) One (April 30)

Our alarm went off before 4:30AM, for our 4:45AM cab pick-up. We quickly got dressed (and flipped our countdown calendar to 0!) and opened the front door just in time for the cab to pull up. It was a quick ride to the airport, where we did curbside check-in. We headed in to the security area and I noticed that our tickets were labeled as “pre-check.” Score! It was nice to do the old school-style check-in, no shoe or liquids removal, etc. We found our gate, got some muffins and drinks, and settled in to wait. Everything was very efficient, so we had quite a bit of time to sit there. At one point they announced that the flight was full and offered free gate check of luggage. I instantly turned in our two rolling carry-on bags, leaving us with just our backpacks and the FE stuff. That was great!

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Soon enough boarding for our flight was announced. We had boarding group 2, so we didn't have to wait very long before we were on our way. Oliver had never been on a plane before, and Elliott had been too young to remember the last time he flew, so this was quite an experience for them. Oliver was quite scared, but as soon as we were in the air he was fine.

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The first leg of our trip was a three-hour flight to Dallas. The kids had new Kindles from Granddad to entertain them, which meant my children were perfect angels on that flight. Oliver kept his legs folded in order to avoid kicking the seat in front of him, but other than that they just quietly entertained themselves, while I worked on the in-flight magazine crossword puzzle. Elliott's ears bothered him when we landed, but that was over quickly.

Our second flight was in a different terminal than where we landed, so we started the long hike. We actually got all the way to the other terminal before we decided to take the rail system to our gate, which was way down there. My Fitbit was working overtime! We got to our gate and hunted down some lunch at Au Bon Pain. The mustard on our sandwiches was so hot that Elliott took the bread off of his, and I felt like a hole was being burned in my stomach for the rest of the day! And I like my food very spicy.

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After about an hour-and-a-half boarding was called for our flight to Fort Lauderdale. Again we had group 2, and everything was very smooth. Soon we were sitting in our seats getting all settled in. This flight was also about three hours long, and our plane was equipped with screens that played tv shows. All of the shows were hour-long NBC dramas, none of which we were interested in, so that was a bummer. Right around the time the kids were starting to feel antsy (though they were extremely well-behaved on this leg, too), the pilot announced that we were beginning our descent.

Unfortunately, the trouble that had started on our first flight continued and worsened, as Elliott's ears were really hurting him. He was in absolute agony, and it didn't completely abate upon landing. Luckily, I had a big surprise for the kids when we (finally) got to the luggage pick-up area.

We had a limo waiting for us, ready to take us off to our hotel in Miami! The boys were beyond excited, and that limo ride still stands out to Elliott as a highlight of the trip. He could not wait to get back to school so that he could tell his friends all about it. Having a driver to help me with all of our luggage was the best thing!

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Limo: A Family Limo. $155 including meet & greet, gratuity, and all fees.

About forty-five minutes later we arrived at our hotel in Miami, the Holiday Inn Port of Miami, on Biscayne Blvd. I actually got this hotel as a blind deal through Hotwire, for just under $150 after tax. It turned out to be very convenient, located close to the port and across the street from Bayside Marketplace, a waterfront shopping center. We got all checked in, had our luggage brought up to the room, and headed right out to get some dinner.


I had really hoped to eat some good Cuban food on our one night in Miami, and even had a recommendation from someone the meet-up group for a place that happened to be in the shopping center (Latin American Bayside Cafe). However, after a long day of travel and limited sleep I decided that we would be better off not having such a heavy meal. We wandered the mall and ended up at a place called Latin Grill (I think – our cup in the photo says Cajun Grill!) in the food court, sharing a plate. It was actually totally delicious – teriyaki chicken, macaroni & cheese, and rice & beans.

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After dinner I wanted to pop into the Disney Store, just to see if they had anything cruise-related (they did not). However, we did have our very first meet-up group encounter! I knew that some fellow cruisers, also from San Diego, were staying at the Holiday Inn, too, so I had been sure to take a good look at their photo. It worked, because I instantly recognized them. So, we met Christa, Ryan, and Ava (11). Ava and Elliott hit it right off, which was great.

I had a horrible moment where I almost spoiled a major surprise for all of our kids. Right before we left we had discovered that they are going to be on the same cruise we will be on in October, but it is a big surprise for all of the kids. I said something about it, not even thinking. Christa is apparently the master of covering up and the kids didn't even notice, but I just felt terrible. That night I actually had some anxiety about it, but they are the most chill and nice people and it was nothing to them. Thank goodness!

After picking up some Tsum Tsums for the kids, to start up what I am sure will be a major collection, we decided to get some ice cream at Haagen Dazs. Oh. My. Goodness. Two single-scoop cones, one single-scoop cup, and one Orangina cost almost $27! After recovering from some major sticker shock we headed back to our hotel to relax for the rest of the evening.
 
So glad that the Holiday Inn worked out well for you and that the boys loved the limo surprise. Like you say, it was great for you to have help with the luggage too. I hope Elliott's ears were much better once all the flying was done with.
 
I'm excited to follow along on your report! We cruised with you in 2012, and I remember that things were hard for you then. I'm happy for you and your boys that you got to take this cruise!
 
I'm excited to follow along on your report! We cruised with you in 2012, and I remember that things were hard for you then. I'm happy for you and your boys that you got to take this cruise!

Hi! It's been a crazy few years around here... really hoping that we are now heading toward finally finding some healing! This cruise was definitely a step in the right direction. Who would ever think that a vacation could make such a difference?
 
Loving the report so far. Next time you fly get Earplanes you can find them in most drug stores. They are ear plugs they come in kid and adult sizes. I always have to have them for take off and landing sometimes the whole flight. They really do help me.
I surprised my kids years ago with a limo to pick us up for our big trip to Disney World but when it arrived it was a big black van not a stretch. My daughter thought it was the coroner coming to tell us about another death as that had happened a few months earlier. Needless to say not only did that not go over really big I was angry we didnt get the stretch. The van was fancy inside but no one driving by could see that. So glad that your surprise went over big!
 
Loving the report so far. Next time you fly get Earplanes you can find them in most drug stores. They are ear plugs they come in kid and adult sizes. I always have to have them for take off and landing sometimes the whole flight. They really do help me.

Thanks for the tip! I will try those out next time. Poor kid... it was a really good thing the vacation ended in our home town, because it would have been serious drama if I'd tried to get him on another plane.

I surprised my kids years ago with a limo to pick us up for our big trip to Disney World but when it arrived it was a big black van not a stretch. My daughter thought it was the coroner coming to tell us about another death as that had happened a few months earlier. Needless to say not only did that not go over really big I was angry we didnt get the stretch. The van was fancy inside but no one driving by could see that. So glad that your surprise went over big!

Oh no! It is always such a bummer when a surprise doesn't go as intended.
 

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