Disney Cruise Hijinks

As I write this, I’m sitting in LAX waiting for our flight back to Oakland after a beautiful week of cruising the Mexican Riviera on the Disney Wonder. If you want to jump to the tons of pictures I took, just look at this Flickr set.

We started our family journey last Sunday morning, rather early. We had to be out of the house around 6AM to pick up my in-laws who were going to drop us off at the airport. No issues at the airport aside from flying Southwest (which I hate) and we found our way to LAX.

A $60 taxi ride later, we were just outside the World Cruise Terminal, which is a huge building at the port of LA. Standing alongside that building was the 10+ stories of the Disney Wonder, which is nearly identical to the Disney Magic (a ship we’d been on in the Caribbean about two years prior).

We were able to check in and board with no issues. We dumped our bags in our stateroom (which like all cruise staterooms, was rather cramped being about the size of our master bathroom… we have a large master bath). I didn’t really take any new pictures of the state room as it’s pretty much identical to the one we had on the Magic.

We reacquainted ourselves with the layout of the ship: where all the restaurants, kids clubs, movie theater, sports bar, etc. all were and then settled in for some relaxation over the next couple days.

We had two days at sea to start and that first night coming out of LA, the sea was rough and cold. It was raining, windy and probably around 50 degrees at best. So like most folks, we stayed indoors. We got to meet our dinner servers that evening (Lavendra from India and Eder from Peru) who would be attending to our dining needs each night of the trip.

As usual, food was the highlight of our parental experience for the trip. Fine meals were prepared each evening (lunches and breakfasts were “ok” but nothing compared to the dinners). Sharon and I ordered the 5 bottle wine package so for five of the nights; we picked a different bottle of wine each evening.

But the best night was our 10th anniversary dinner at Palo’s which is the “adults only” restaurant. It requires extra reservations but we had a fantastic meal. I’d asked the sommelier to have some 2002 Dom Perignon ready for us upon our arrival. Hristof was our server and he took amazing care of us.

I started with a Tuna Carpaccio then moved on to a Lobster/Mascarpone ravioli (prepared by hand just that afternoon) with a main course of Australian beef tenderloin (which was good) and a second dish of New Zealand rack of lamb (which was amazing). I closed with a special chocolate soufflé, which was covered in both dark and white chocolate. I forget what Sharon had but whatever it was, I “won”.

When we were done, the head server came over and presented us with a “special anniversary” desert. While not really edible, it was a beautifully designed plate of chocolate/raspberry puree to celebrate our special night.

Special Dessert

When we weren’t eating (which wasn’t often… I’m sure I’m a solid +5 lbs heavier today than at the start of the trip), we were checking out shows, swimming (on the warmer days), exploring the two ports, and otherwise enjoying the ship.

Kaiya’s favorite two things were by far the pools and the Oceaneer’s Lab.

Once she was in either pool (Mickey’s kids pool or the Goofy family pool), we had an extremely difficult time getting her out. The first day in Cabo, we got back from our shore visit a bit early and took advantage of the fact that it was largely empty. She also discovered the fun of the Mickey water slide. She spent about five straight hours in the pool, but despiteSPF50 sunscreen, she wound up with a bit of a sunburn on her shoulders. We had to keep her out of the sun for the next two days.

The Lab is supposed to be for kids ages 8-10, but she much preferred the programming and activities in the lab versus the Club (which was more her age). She made flubber, made some bracelets, played computer games, baked cookies, attended a Disney Trivia Game Show and more. She didn’t spend too much time in the clubs this trip. Probably not more than 6 hours over the whole trip but she did like the time she spent there and would have spent more if we’d let her.

Kaiya has LOADS of pictures with princesses and characters

There were two ports-of-call: Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas. PV was a first for us and we explored for a couple hours. We found a touristy flea market where we bought Kaiya some red “Oakley” sunglasses (surely counterfeit) and a couple of pottery magnets (clearly mass produced “by hand”). In general, we found it to be very similar to the Mexican ports we’ve visited on the Gulf side of the country and similar to our prior experiences in Cabo. Pretty to visit, but so tourist focused, not really super interesting.

I needed to pick up a better pair of pants for our dinner at Palo’s so we quick ran across the street to the mall which had a Liverpool’s as an anchor store to pick up a black pair of slacks. While there, I ran into a Game Planet (effectively a Gamestop in Mexico) and was a bit shocked to see frontline titles running for $999 Mexican (about $90 US). Bummer for that market. I’m going to have to look into the mechanics of that a bit more when I’m back in the office. On the plus side they had MvC3 in stock on both platforms so someone’s doing their job down here. 🙂

Our Cabo visit we decided to embrace the tourist trap nature of the port. Sharon wanted a beer as soon as we got off the tender boat, so she paid about 12X what a beer would cost if we walked just 5 minutes away from the disembarkation point at Senior Frog’s. She was lured in by the waiter making balloon animal hats for kids and adults alike and the singing the waiters did for the patrons. In any event, she ordered herself a Tecate Light (about as cheap a beer as you can get, even in the US) and Kaiya got a Shirley Temple in a giant “yard” plastic cup that was nearly as tall as she was. Unfortunately, it seems that that drink used ice from unfiltered Mexican water which lead to a few tummy problems for Kaiya over the next two days, but I’ll save you the gruesome detail there.

After the little drink, there was a shack purporting to be a charity for a Tiger and Lion preserve in Mexico City. Whether that’s true or not is unknown but what’s known was that for a $25 donation, we could have our picture taken with a baby lion or tiger which is pretty cool. So we did that. I’m hoping that some portion of that $25 is indeed going to a preserve or at least to take care of the 2 month old tiger cub that we got to hold and play with for about 10 minutes. Very nice little animal, though a bit mouthy (teething) and a bit smelly. Think of it like a pound puppy both.

Tiger cubs - cute but smelly

A little more wandering around and we picked up some other knick-knacks here and there from street vendors for Kaiya. Inevitably, 50 feet down the road we’d find someone else selling the same thing for 1/3rd of what we’d paid for ours.

Kaiya and Christian in Cabo

All in all it was a great trip but the one oddity was that there was a crewmember missing from the second day onward. There were searches conducted of the whole ship and investigations, but no news was shared with cruise goers. Only some Google news searches I did the night before we were back in LA confirmed that she still hadn’t been found and additional investigations were pending. Was very unusual and I’d hope that there’s ultimately a happy ending to the story (or at least a resolution), as unlikely as that may be at this point.