Earkid’s Excellent Panama Canal Cruise Adventure May 10-25, 2008 **Updated 7/19** COMPLETE About This Page:

[HeatherD]

Love the moon photo and the iguanas!

[MickeyMAC]

Great trip report. Your pictures are awesome. Swimming with the dolphins looked like fun.

[steph steph]

First of all, congratulations on the completion of chemo.. You are loved!! You also seem to have a great husband and many loving family and friends, I'm sure that also helped you get through it.
Great, great pictures! My family of 4 will be on the EB voyage and are totally excited. Your pictures give me something else to look at and dream about while I await my turn.

[NanaTink]

Another great update! The dolphin adventure looks like lots of fun! Between you, Terri and Lesley, I can hardly wait for our repo cruise! I'm stamping my foot with impatience!
Thanks for sharing your wonderful photos and memories!

[DyanKJ130]

What a great day!! this photo!!

More please!

[12cjl]

What great pics.

[Earkid]

Thanks everyone for all your nice comments. Been busy training a new hire at work and having an amazingly busy July, which is unusual since I work with a senior population that usually hightails it out of Phoenix when the heat hits. I'm going to begin posting some of my better photos to the Passporter Picture archives, but I've got to finish up this TR first.

May 22
Today we arrived at our final port, Cabo San Lucas! We saw someone riding a horse on the beach. Ah the life!

The hubster left early for his golf excursion. There were only four people total on this excursion…and two were cast members from the ship. He said it was a very nice and relaxing day even though the winds were very high. Look at that follow through.

The Tom Weiskopf designed course was gorgeous with breathtaking views of the ocean. You can see how windy it was by the palm trees in this pic.

Meanwhile, back at the ship a bunch of us took the Harbor cruise and scenic drive. Many of the water type excursions were cancelled due to the high winds. Glad we didn’t wait till Cabo to do our snorkeling. Here is the main attraction of the Harbor cruise.

The cruise was about 30 minutes total then we were taken back to the dock and led to a bus for the “scenic” portion of our excursion. Boy is it cold today. We drove for about 30 minutes and ended up at this scenic overlook which was also a restaurant that opened up for dinner. Since it was only lunch time we didn’t get to eat but did get served a cold drink, brrr. You can see a tiny Magic ship in the background.

The bus driver said we could choose to be dropped off in town or taken back to the dock. We were starving so we were dropped off in town and ate at Cabo Wabo. I was glad I got to experience it but it was very touristy and I was wishing we had chosen somewhere with a little more local flair.

After lunch we walked around town and shopped for a bit. Then tendered back to the Magic to rest up a bit and get ready for Pirate night. Here we are with our head server Gaspare.

We also attended the Pirate deck party afterward and saw the fireworks. The buffet looked excellent but it is so hard to enjoy the evening buffets when you have late dining. With our large group we often didn’t get out of the dining room until 10:30. Next time, if I know there will be a buffet in the evening I’ll probably try to eat less at dinner so I can enjoy the deck food.

[Earkid]

May 23
It is with a bit of melancholy that we head toward the Port of Los Angeles. The weather continued to be cold, windy and overcast so it was hard to enjoy any pool time. The weather kind of matched our mood so we tried to make our own fun. We had the first meeting of the Vallarta Princesses.

We walked around the ship taking photos of everything. I think our camera lens was dirty because many of our pics these last few days didn’t come out clear.

The second formal night and the ship’s officers were out in force.

We still had about a half bottle of Pyrat Rum left and we knew we couldn’t disembark with it so we brought it to dinner to share with everyone. You can see the officer in the middle taking care of it for us for awhile while we had some formal pics taken with Minnie. Today is also the actual day of our 10th Anniversary so we bought everyone in our party shot glasses (or toothpick holders if you prefer, LOL) with the Disney Magic 10th Anniversary Logo. We thought it was fun that the Magic was celebrating its tenth along with us. I can't believe I didn't get pictures of the shot glasses, every one loved them.


Sweet Guisseppe who never failed to ask “pepper madam?” every night.

It was fun to share our cake with all our friends as well.

Ten years ago I had Bride/Groom T-Shirts made to wear for our wedding weekend. Somehow I remembered to bring them along for this special trip and we wore them all day today. When we got back to our room this is what we found.

[Earkid]

May 24
Our final sea day and we are taking fewer and fewer pics. I couldn’t remember if I took pics of our decorated door so that’s one thing I did today.








Menu of the final night. Till We Meet Again





Cold split pea soup that was a chartreuse color. No kidding. Not so good.




I will remember that the food was always impeccably plated. LOL




One final shot of our wait staff. Levent, Adrian, Guisseppe

[Earkid]

May 25 *sob*
The trip is over and so begins the painful process of getting home. The overcast weather and stark industrial surroundings reflected our mood.

We were in the final group to disembark and upon waking up we saw people already in line for customs.

It didn’t take us long to get ready so we decided to walk around deck until time for breakfast, taking pictures and dragging our treasures behind us.

The maintenance to turn around the ship had already begun in earnest.

Trying to put on a happy face at Lumiere’s

Friends shared their favorite port purchases.

The mass exodus. Good bye Magic! See you in April.

[chezp]

What a wonderful report. I'm really sad to see it come to an end, but it looks like you had a great time - thanks for taking us along with you.

[Kenny]

What a great Trip! Happy Anniversary! Thanks for taking us along!

[NanaTink]

Oh, I'm so sad to see it end, but it looks like you had a wonderful time! Thanks ever so much for sharing your trip with us! I've really enjoyed it!

[Colexis Mom]

More fantastic updates! I'm glad you guys had a great time on the cruise Thanks so much for sharing your adventures with us

[DyanKJ130]

Great updates!! (I can't see any of your photos though. ) I can't believe your trip has come to an end!!