Jan 19 - Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

We woke up to the most beautiful view of Cabo San Lucas! Along with the Parsons and the Kohs, we made it in time to board the first tender off the ship. As we pulled into the marina and walked off the tender, we were confronted with an endless number of tour operators spruiking their services. We bargained our way to our glass-bottomed boat for our morning expedition to the famous Land's end. Daniel was our guide for the morning. The view looking out of the boat towards Land's End was spectacular... sea lions, rock formations, uninhabited beaches... but the kids were transfixed by the semiopaque "glass" bottom of the boat which revealed the occasional white fish. It was only when the barking of an entire sea lion colony and the squarking of all the pelicans started to compete with their volume that they looked up and finally became excited about that too. The real excitement, however, was yet to come.

A view of Land's End from our balcony at dawn

Wake up sleepy heads, we have a tender to catch!

The tender process

The Statendam, also moored at Cabo San Lucas for the day

Looking back at the Wonder

Whale

Views coming into the marina

On the glass bottom boat...oh so sunny!

Enjoying their life vests

Spectacular rock formations

Secluded beaches

Abundant wildlife

Daniel dropped us off at Medano Beach, a haven of beach side activities, busy cafes and luxurious beach front resorts. Eight Albanys and Kohs bravely donned life jackets, handed over valuables and excess offspring and jumped on a slippery inflatable banana. We managed to communicate to the speedboat driver that thumbs up meant go faster and thumbs down meant slow down. The boys and girls had very different ideas about what they should be doing with their hands. The speed and spray had us all squealing but a little too dry for the driver's liking. With an evil grin he hung it to the left with venom and tipped us all in to the frigidly cold waters to be eaten by sea lions. Just as we were all about to be submerged we heard the familiar warcry from the Koh boy, "Awesome!". The girls watched us from the back of the speedboat for the rest of the trip.

Give me one of those!!!

Medano Beach, you can just see our afternoon hang out on the left

We spent the rest of the morning at "The Office", a restaurant made up of a multitude of umbrellas set up so close together by the beach front that they formed a "roof" and provided the much needed shade. We indulged ourselves with smoothies, and corn chips with salsa and guacamole. Daniel picked us up right on time and too us back to the marina. We wondered around the shops at the port. With the Statendam at port as well, it was busy and full of atmosphere. We decided to head back to the ship for lunch. We showered the sand and salt water off everyone and dropped the children at the kids club. It was bliss to be able to enjoy ice-cream on pool deck and watched the ship sail away from the port.

As we went for dinner, I realised that I had left my camera up on dec! Doh. I frantically went back up to search in vain. My faith in human kind and Disney magic was rewareded with the appearance of my camera at Guest services before the end of dinner! All decked out for our last formal night, we took up our seats at the Walt Disney Theatres for the much anticipated award winning show, Disney Dreams. It was awesome! As always, the music, the set changes, the costumes, the details were all phenomenal. It was a show I could watch over and over again. I took the opportunity to some last minute shopping and went to bed feeling very happy. What a wonderful day!

The girls never fail to love dressing up

The poor child pushed to exhaustion again...

The award winning Disney Dreams

Cinderella about to be transformed!

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo!

The Little Mermaid singing Part Of Your World with the most beautiful harmony I've ever heard

Belle

Look at her gorgeous gown!

Panama Canal & Beyond on The Wonder

This cruise from Port Canaveral bound for Los Angeles a much anticipated cruise .

The whole tribe will be congregating at Port Canaveral on January 4. A pre-cruise bonding session to remind ourselves of why we really want to be around each other for 15 days on end has been arranged for the 5th. We are heading for the Kennedy Space Centre for the day. The bus has been booked and discount coupons acquired. We are devising a strategy for boarding the Disney Wonder on Jan 6. The same bus company from the previous day's excursion has been re-deployed for morning transfer duties. We have a target time to be at the port. We have decided to maximise the power of numbers after embarkation. We shall divide and conquer. One has been allocated the duty of acquiring PALO reservations, another has been set the task of registering the children for kids club. The rest will have to battle with the feeding the children. A rendezvous point has been set by the pool. The research to finetune our approach continues.

Shore excursions have taken up a big portion of our meeting schedule. The ports of call include Castaway Cay, Aruba, Puntarenas, Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas. We seem to be bucking the general trend by choosing to do excursions either ourselves or with our own private guide. That is, we are only doing 2 excursions with DCL. Many other cruisers who are not doing DCL run excursions appear to not be doing excursions at all and staying on the ship.

Our first stop will be at Disney's private island hideaway, Castaway Cay. I can't wait! I have heard so much it and it has all been good. Next up is Aruba in the West Indies. We have arranged our own MarioKarting adventure for the boys and the girls will be touring the island in our air-conditioned private van with our friendly private guide, Sunny. The plan is to meet up for lunch and then explore the town before heading back onto the ship.

We will then travel through the historic Panama Canal emerging at the Pacific Ocean. Malcolm and I watched a documentary about the building of the Panama Canal and have been fascinated ever since. We jumped at the chance to sail through it. I am in the process of acquiring a book about the Panama Canal. I have been told to try to be less obsessive...

Puntarenas in Costa Rica is one of the ports where we have elected to do a shore excursions with Disney, one of the reasons being is that it is one of the few ports which:
1) offer excursions suitable for all ages
2) offer excursions suitable for all ages of interest
We will be heading into the rainforest for a ride on an aerial tram.

Our first port in sunny Mexico will be Manzanillo where we have lined up another private tour, this time with Paco. For a bargain price of US$300 total, he will drive us around and be our private guide, as well as providing cold water and refreshments.

Puerto Vallarta is slated for our other Disney run excursion. We are embarking on a Tequila making journey! Still not quite sure why I am doing this as I don't drink alcohol...

Last but not least, we have Cabo San Lucas. Our plan is to DIY. We will bargain for our own boats to the famous rock formation at Land's End and then explore the town at leisure.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to and end. That, for us, will happen at Los Angeles, where 14 of us have to figure out how to spend the day and transport ourselves around before boarding a 14 hour flight at 1045pm, with 6 children and our luggage in tow. Plans at the end of the cruise still undetermined! Wish us luck.

P.S. We have been allocated stateroom 7088, the same stateroom number as on the Disney Magic back in April! How cool is that?